James Fox: Why the Varginha Case Changes Everything

¿Quieres mejor internet? Cox Internet de 300 megas tiene las velocidades rápidas y confiables que buscas. Perfecto para streaming y gaming y trabajar desde casa. Todo por solo $45 dólares al mes cuando agregas Cox Mobile. Incluye equipo de Wi-Fi y garantía de precio de dos años en tu plan. ¡No esperes! ¡Cámbiate hoy a Cox! Requiere Cox Mobile Gig Unlimited. Garantía de precio no incluye impuestos y cargos. Velocidad de datos móviles se reduce después de 20 gigas al mes. Hi everyone and welcome back to That UFO Podcast. As always, my name is Andy and we're bringing in 2026 with a huge name in the world of UFOs. A returning guest and he is, in my opinion, one of the best documentary makers out there. Producing some of the greatest content known to man on the UFO topic. Welcome back, Mr. James Fox. James, welcome. Thanks so much for having me on. Everyone will be feeling cold, James, with you sitting in your jacket and me in my heated blanket. But they can't see the bottom half of me, luckily for them. So, we're both doing this for the greater good and for the public, aren't we? Freezing our asses off, as they say, in all the different countries that will be listening to this. It's like Siberia out my window right now. I love it. But the thing is, and I generate heat when I move, but when I've been sitting here for hours doing podcasts and radio interviews, you're not moving. So, I was like, I'm sorry. I have to put the jacket on. No, I don't blame you. And listen, you've been on this podcast so many times. We're not going to go over the old ground. If it's the first time you're hearing from or of James Fox, he's a great documentary maker. He's made some of the best content available on this topic. He still has, in my opinion, and others, the best UFO documentary out there. I'm not going to compare it to individual documentaries that may or may not have came out in the last few weeks. But, for example, The Phenomenon is still, for me, the go-to documentary for an overview of this topic. James, you're on to talk about Moment of Contact, New Revelations of Alien Encounters. It's an extended cut. Is that how you would put it to the initial release of Moment of Contact? We were really struggling with what do we call this because we had the name recognition of the case, which is Moment of Contact. So, we didn't want to change that. But I was talking to a number of fellow filmmakers, and they were like, Look, mate, this is extremely – this is not a director's cut. This is complete revamping, 20-minute, complete, brand-new opening. You cover the correctional hearings. You cover some other cases as examples of – this is not the first time – allegations of this nature. And then, of course, we have all this new – we've got the former head of the police. We've got two forensic pathologists. We've got the neurosurgeon. That's unprecedented. So, we decided, let's call it Moment of Contact, New Revelations of Alien Encounters because that's what it is. Because as far as I know, and I've made a lot of documentaries on this topic, I've never heard – and a lot of people that I've talked to have never heard. They think this is the first time ever firsthand eyewitness testimony, and it just so happens to be the head neurosurgeon – of communication and contact with an alien in captivity. I think this is the first time in history. I can't think of anything off the top of my head, and I would certainly be quick to correct you if that was the case. But listen, if someone's watching this now, James, and they haven't seen Moment of Contact, and they aren't familiar with the Virginia case itself, do you want to give a really brief overview of what it was you were setting out to do first time round? Absolutely. First and foremost, don't believe anything I'm about to tell you. Because I didn't. So it was January 1996, and there was a couple of witnesses, a handful of witnesses that saw a cylindrical-shaped object, cigar-shaped, but a little larger than a school bus. I don't know if your audience is familiar with the American-sized school bus. Pretty good size. I don't know how many children they probably have rows, at least 15 rows, possibly up to 20 rows of seats. Each seat, a minimum of two people on either side, so four. A lot of people. Fifty sexy kids, yeah. Yeah. And so it was a cylindrical-shaped object, and apparently it had like a tear or a gash in the backside of it, and it had a white vapor. And they made the distinction – the witnesses I spoke with, they said, look, it wasn't like a smoke that you'd expect from an outdoor fire or something. It was that blue smoke. It was a white vapor. It behaved differently. And it was struggling to stay in the sky, and it was silent. And two of the farmers that I interviewed, Orlina and Carlos de Fretas, I think it was. Anyway, they said, had our animals not, you know, made a ruckus in the middle of the night, we wouldn't have even known it was there because it didn't make any sound. But it was clearly struggling to stay in the sky and had no control services. I think one of the witnesses, the farmer said it was jokingly like it was like a flying submarine, you know. And we have new witnesses that saw it. Anyway, ultimately it crashed at a place called Maiolini Farm. And very early in the morning, it was witnessed by – the crash site was witnessed by a gentleman named Carlos de Souza, who gave one statement back in 1996, and then he vanished for 26 years. And we found him with the help of my partner, Marco Leal, and others. And then several days later, there were reports of strange creatures in the town of Virginia. If you look at the impact site, we do Google Maps. And you show like, all right, this is – the farmer saw the object here, new witness Fabio Portado, also a farm, over here. And then the crash site was right in the middle. And then Virginia was just 12 to 20 kilometers away from the impact, from the alleged impact site as the crow flies. Anyway, several days later, people in the town of Virginia, broad daylight, are witnessing strange creatures. I don't think there was any talk of E.T. or anything like that, or alien. It was just – I didn't know what the hell they were looking at. Three of the best witnesses, in my humble opinion, of the creature outside on its own, broad daylight, were three girls. Liliani, her sister Valkyria, and their older friend Katya, who's like 21. And Liliani was 16, her younger sister was 14, Valkyria. And they were taking a shortcut, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Remember, in January is like summertime over there. Very, very hot day, scorching hot day. And they came upon a creature that they thought might have been the devil. They didn't know what this thing was. It was spindly arms, spindly legs, big teardrop-shaped head, big, big red eyes, feeble, weak, frightened, vulnerable. And they had – they caught within 10 feet of this creature. And I don't know if it was – I think it was Liliani who just screamed, like, ah, when she looked into his red eyes. And she grabbed her younger sister and just hightailed it out of there. They left the older woman, Katya, who was frozen in her tracks, fixated on the eyes of this creature, evidently having some level of communication with it. And Liliani gets about 100 feet away, or as you'd say, probably 30, 40 meters, and realizes they left Katya behind. So she leaves her younger sister, Valkyria, at that spot, runs back, grabs Katya, yanks her out of there. Meanwhile, there's a whole blockade of military trucks surrounding this area of the neighborhood blockade, right? The girls were unaware of that because they were on the inside of the blockade. And then about two hours later, according to many eyewitnesses and researchers, there were two military officers, Eric Lopes and Marco Chariz, on the lookout for something unusual. They saw the same creature just a couple blocks away. It had to be the same creature, we're assuming. We don't know definitively, but it was just a few blocks away, just a couple hours later. Marco Chariz, without a moment's hesitation, they stopped the car. Eric Lopes stops the car. Marco leaps out, grabs this thing, puts it on his lap, and ultimately take it to a hospital called Regional Hospital. So that in itself is, and then we have testimony of military picking it up at the various hospitals, driving the creature to, as a military base, ultimately going to a place called Campinas, which is three hours to the south, and the Americans flew in, took a bunch of stuff, back to America, case goes cold. And then enter Mr. James Fox several decades later to start picking up on this story. And I want to say, for folks who have picked up a copy of my book, thank you very much. A little peek behind the actor's curtain here, or writer's curtain, I suppose. I had to submit two samples, chapters, and the first one I wrote for the book was Virginia. And I spent the evening re-watching Moment of Contact and watching James' interviews, re-watching interviews he'd done with me. So that was one of the first things I wrote for the book. What was it about Moment of Contact? Did you feel it was incomplete, that you wanted to go back and add more? Well, I was reporting on Moment of Contact since I was, I mean, I was investigating it reluctantly, and I was highly opposed to the story initially. And, in fact, I did, I was working on my second UFO documentary when I learned about it in the late 90s by my partner Tim Coleman, and I just dismissed it immediately. I dismissed him, I dismissed the case, I refused to read one line, I said, there's no way that happened, there's no way live aliens were walking the town, and the whole world not know about it. It can't be, therefore it isn't. And I didn't even look into it for another 12 years, 13 years. I did Out of the Blue, I did Out of the Blue 2, then I did I Know What I Saw, and then I was in Brazil on an unrelated, completely unrelated, I was just doing a presentation about the film I did, I Know What I Saw. And I met with Stanton Friedman in Brazil, he happened to be at the same conference, and he bent my ear, and he's like, you know, if it wasn't for Stanton Friedman and Don Schmidt and Kevin Randall, we wouldn't know about Roswell, and a handful of others. I had tremendous respect for Stanton Friedman. He's like, oh, don't dismiss it so fast. I met some of the witnesses back in, I think it was 2002, just a handful of years after it happened. He's like, I think it might be the Roswell of Brazil, and I think the Americans were involved, it wouldn't surprise me, but as it turns out, he was absolutely right. And now, obviously, I'm absolutely convinced it happened. And it's an ongoing thing, but I included it in the phenomenon, but then I realized, it's like I couldn't sandwich this whole story into like one little 10, 12-minute segment, like I did with other kids. Rua, for instance, in Australia, Westall. I ended up working on it for years, and then I deleted it. I remember the day, like it was yesterday, I was in the edit room, and I just said, you know what, this has to be a standalone film. It's too much. It's very complex. There's so many moving parts. I'm going to just, and I hit the delete button, wiped it out of the timeline, and I released the phenomenon without this case. And I remember people that I was working with in Brazil were like, oh, my God, what are you doing? We've been working on this for years. I said, sit tight. Don't worry. I know it's a nightmare right now, but I promise you we need to find the additional witnesses. We need to find Carlos de Souza, the crash witness. We need to find more. You know, let's go back to the drawing board. I'm coming back to Brazil. We're going to reshoot. And we did. And since Moment of Contact came out, there were more people coming forward, people that were, I mean, my gosh, Marco was out there knocking on doors, and we were both working together, and two forensic pathologists, one of which that did the autopsy on the – I didn't tell you people earlier. So when the military officer, Marco Scherzi, dropped the creature off with Eric Lopes at Regional Hospital, he, a couple weeks later, got this blood – this infection. He had a little scratch, a little scratch under his arm, and he was hospitalized, and we interviewed the doctor that worked on him, Dr. Cesario, and he said, he goes, look, man, I threw the kitchen sink. And his – this bacteria didn't respond to any of the antibiotics. I've never seen anything like it in my life since or, you know, before or since. Then the officer died. The individual, Dr. Armando, forensic pathologist, did the autopsy on him, participated in this new cut of the film. Yeah. And his partner, who founded the company, IPD Labs, who did the tissue samples, studied the tissue samples of the deceased military officer, went on camera for this version of the movie, and he was like, yeah, I've never seen bacteria like this in my life, ever before, ever since. This bacteria behaved in a way that I've never seen anything bacteria on earth do. And then he gave us the full, unredacted, with commentary, autopsy report, which we have now. We did a deep – actually, Chris Ramsey did a deep dive into it. It hadn't been released yet. And, you know, we had been on the trail of this neurosurgeon, because we have somebody working within the – one of the hospitals that's been kind of our deep throat, and we meet with this individual off the record over the last decade. Go talk to this person. That doctor saw the video. Da-da-da-da-da. So we'd heard that Dr. Italo, who's the lead neurosurgeon at Regional Hospital, had seen the video because we were trying to get our hands on that video for obvious reasons. And we eventually tracked him down. He eventually, after many, many efforts, agreed to have a meeting with Marco and myself. And mine was over video call, and Marco did the translations. And I was just looking him in the eyes over the video call. You know, this is over a year ago. You know, where's the video? Did you see the video? Where's the video? Like, ah, you know? And he confesses to having seen the video, but he denied having seen the creature at that time. Then he had a heart attack. He was lying in the ICU, staring at the ceiling. His other friend who'd shot the video had died of a heart attack in 2018. Then he got a prostate cancer. And he said, man, if I come out of this, I'm not taking this to the grave. Future generations have a right to know. And I'm going to, you know. And then he decided, I don't care what the consequences are. And he really didn't. And he decided to reveal all. And he did. So now, you know, how are you not going to do an updated version? We've got all these congressional hearings that have happened in the United States. Four. At least three. Probably four since the film's release. Allegations at the highest levels of the intelligence community that we have crash retrieval, legacy crash retrieval program. That we are in possession of biologics. And then you've got Virginia, which is the perfect example. I can't think of a better, more well-documented crash retrieval case involving the United States in the world. This is the case. In fact, I think this is the case that's going to settle this once and for all. And so it's an ongoing investigation. The 30th anniversary is coming up next month. I'm going back to Brazil for that. There's going to be a huge celebration with the mayor. I'm encouraging more people to come forward. We're hiring a whole PR firm in Brazil, trying to get more witnesses to come forward. So we'll see what happens. This could be the beginning of the beginning. Dr. Italo is a big part of this extended cut, this new part of the film. And you get incredibly emotional at Dr. Italo sharing story. You're in a cafe together and you can't speak. You get really choked up. What was it about that moment and Dr. Italo's testimony? And bear in mind, you're not speaking directly. You're going through translators. So you're getting emotional at his reaction, the translation. Can you talk about that moment and why you got so choked up? You can imagine like being laughed at and ridiculed for decades. Okay. I had my own father tell me I was fucking nuts. You know, I'm not kidding. And some of my best friends. And has it gotten a little better? Yeah. But when I branched off from the phenomenon and I set my sights on reporting on this alleged crash and live aliens, I had people that I really loved and respected that were in the field with me. They were looking at me like, are you sure you want to do this? Is this really the move you want to make? You're working with like former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, all these intel folks. Now you're going to report and jeopardize your entire reputation after all the work you've done and all the respect that you've gotten. You want to do this? Like, are you sure that's what you want to do? And I was like, well, I understand your skepticism. I respect it because I had it too. But I'm convinced and I'm willing to put my reputation on the line that this event happened. And so when you're subjected to that level of criticism and laughter and ridicule and just overall, like, just kind of shut my mouth and I'll put the film out and let you decide, you know. And then I see him after 29 years and the weight of this and the burden of that. We like could relate on a much deeper level, the two of us. Right. We didn't even speak the languages. I was looking into his eyes and I could see what he was experiencing. And I felt it too. And so to have that weight lifted off his and to see him teared up, I know exactly how he feels. And so I couldn't talk and I was doing everything I could. I was on camera and I was so frustrated. I was trying to get the words out and I couldn't talk. And I was fighting it not to cry on camera because I just wanted to say, you know, I hear you. I respect you. I know what you're going through. And we both just teared up, man. And he grabbed me like a brother, man. And he held me and held my hands and kissed my hands. And we had that moment. We're like family. Like right there on the spot. You're family. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's a really powerful moment that comes across. And that took me aback. And it comes across as authentic. There are other folks in the UFO field who have made documentaries and cry almost on command. And you can tell when someone's being genuine. You could tell the power of that moment. And that really comes across. Even the little Vox Pops, the moments you're speaking to people in the street and asking them, the locals of Virginia, about the incident. This isn't lore for them or legend. This is something that's a part of their history, their town. And I think that really comes across as well for you. And when you say you've gone on a journey yourself now from initially totally dismissing this as a case or being worth your time to the point, as you say, you're now almost family with people who were involved in this. Has it truly cemented this case for you as the UFO case? Well, you know, I'm very, very attached to the Rua, Zimbabwe, 1994, landing to aerial school. I think that's one of the most phenomenal cases, particularly the communication with the children. It's just staggering. And the attempt of contact, right? That's a very compelling case. Very moving. Deeply moving. Socorro. So I think that's one of the cases that 1964, you know, landing, closing counter of the third kind. I think there was some minimum communication. His wife, Mary, certainly said that, you know, he looked this thing in the eyes and I don't know what happened, but he's never been the same person since. Very dear case. But in terms of crash retrieval, I mean, look, Roswell's great. It's amazing. They initially put out that press release that they recovered this thing and then, you know, obviously recanted. And then a lot of people like DuBose and Jesse Marcel came forward later in life to say, no, the original press release was true. It was not of this earth. Very compelling case. But this case in Virginia also demonstrates the global nature of it. This case in Virginia is recent enough where the firsthand people involved are still around for the most part. And they're of the age now, like Italo is like looking at his twilight years. So he's not retired yet. He's still working and probably keep working because he's apparently almost one of a kind in his field of brain surgery. But this case in terms of crash retrieval, firsthand eyewitness testimony, I can't think of a better case. I just can't. What more do you think it has to give? We need to, we need the testimony. I'm in touch. I've been, I brought together along with the help of Dr. Armando, who was the forensic pathologist that did the autopsy on the deceased military officer. He's now top of like all the various hospitals. And we brought together all the doctors for the first time in history. I posted on my ex account and, you know, got to know their wives, right? Their partners, their wives, some of their family, their children. It's very different than just watching someone on film to get to know their wives and, you know, how does this impact your lives? Like, how does it impact your, meeting his coworkers? You know, how long have you known each other? Like that really makes it so much more real. You know, why did you lie about it for all those years? It's not exactly a career enhancing move. You think someone's going to want the brain worked on with a guy who sees aliens and communicates with aliens? Like that's not exactly, you know, um, uh, we need the American side and I won't stop till I get it. And we need testimony from Humanitas Hospital. We're in touch with a couple of potential targets. Uh, I'm going to keep, I'm going to keep at it because, uh, I don't know if you remember this or not, but this guy named Dr. Roger Lear, he did implant stuff. Yes. Remember him? Yeah, uh, he, in 2012, 2013, when I was up to my eyeballs filming for the phenomenon and I had arranged along with the help of Randall Nickerson, uh, locating the children, now adults from all different various parts of the world and flying them into Los Angeles. And I got, uh, Kenneth Arnold's daughter, Kim Arnold in, and it was a big film week, big, big film week. And I'd lost my voice. I was working 16, 17 hour days. And Roger Lear found out that I was going to probably include a segment of the Barginia case in the phenomenon. And I was filming and he was desperately trying to get on camera. And, um, you know, at one point I said, yeah, you know, I really want to interview you, but we ran everybody to the ground. I mean, working so hard, the cameramen, the sound guys, and we were working already 17 hour days. We couldn't squeeze another person in there. And Dr. Lear got agitated with me and, and, and I said, don't take it personally, Dr. Lear. I, I really, I really want to get you on camera. He goes, I know things about that case that I, I got it, you know, so anyway, long story short, I don't end up interviewing him in Los Angeles. He gives me these tapes that he shot back in 2002, I'm going to say, what's that like, uh, four, six years after it happened. And he was one of the few people to get, um, the wife. In fact, he was the only one to get the interview with this, with the wife of the deceased military officer who allegedly grabbed the creature. Um, and he did a lot of, he met with the girls and he met with, uh, the lead investigator, Uber Ejato Rodriguez. They worked together with his son, was a translator. They went around, met a lot of the people that I've already met and more. And then I realized, oh, sorry. So he gave me those tapes. I transferred the tapes. I sent them back. Don't know what the timeline was. And he died. I was like, shit. So I ended up releasing the phenomenon, not including any bit of Virginia. And then fast forward, I'm making a documentary, a standalone documentary on Virginia. And I'd say to myself, oh my gosh, I've got those tapes from Dr. Roger Lear. Let me go get those. Oh my gosh. He wrote a book. Let me get that book. Got the book, got the tapes. The tapes were, I mean, the book was basically a translation. I mean, it was like a direct transcript of the tapes. Yeah. But there's one segment in the book that he describes a meeting with two doctors from Humanitas Hospital where they had major telepathic communication with this creature in captivity. Like the creature said to these doctors, according to Roger Lear's book, okay? Roger Lear did not tell me this, but in his book. And I know his book is totally accurate up to the point where that meeting with the two doctors at Humanitas Hospital was not recorded on camera because they refused to let him do that. So he's either lying about it or it happened and there's no documentation of it because Ubarajara won't talk about it. Ubarajara's son won't talk about it. And both Roger Lear and the doctor friend they had with him are both dead. But in the book, he said that these doctors described very significant telepathic communication and that the alien had said to the doctors, we feel sorry for your race because you don't realize the potential of who you are. Now, those two doctors, I have a name of one of them, but I've yet to get a hold of him because I've been so damn busy. Every time I go there, I'm just back, just sideways busy. But I will go and track that one down. So I want to get testimony of what happened at Humanitas Hospital from the doctors. And then, of course, I want the American side. I thought last year that I had a whistleblower from the American side come forward. I was pretty convinced it was. And then he, like a puff of smoke, banished. And what about the video? And do you know what? In terms of the videos, you are one of the most frustrating guests I have because there are now two videos that I want to see that you claim to have either seen or want to get a hold of. The Chuck Clark footage I bring up on every single interview with you and the whole Logan Paul getting to film it. That's infuriating. Although he has redeemed himself being pretty good at wrestling. The Virginia video. Do you want to just touch on for anyone unfamiliar what that video claims to show and what's your progress in trying to get a hold of it? So it's my understanding. I won't go into too much detail because I could go on forever. But obviously, there's nobody out there that wants this video more than me. I can assure you of that. And if I went into great detail of the efforts that I've already made, that Marco has already made, this interview would go on for an hour and a half, two hours, three hours. We spoke to the former chief of police. What led us to him were two people that claimed that he had a photograph. One of the creatures was alive. One was dead. We found him a couple of years ago before we did the initial moment of contact. He was really evasive. I jokingly say any people that behave like that are like trying to grab a bar of soap in the bathtub, you know? He's like, poo, poo, poo. It's like one minute they're there. The next minute they're gone. And he didn't deny the fact that he had at one point a photograph. We tracked that one down. Then there was another neurosurgeon by the name of Marcos Venesis who evidently shot one of the videos. And the reason why we know this is because anybody who poo-pooed the case in the medical community, Marcos Venesis would invite over to his house for drinks or dinner or whatever. And he would say, close the blinds, lock the door, and show him this video. So we were in touch with doctors that had seen it. So that led us to Marcos Venesis. But unfortunately, he had died. We found his wife. We got his... He had an affair with this other woman. He had a kid with her. We got a hold of the kid. We got a hold of his mistress. We got a hold of his wife. We dug through his stuff. I brought home his computer, like took his computer apart, tried to get the hard drive. The hard drive was missing. Like, I mean, it just like goes on and on. There was another meeting that we had with a military officer that his partner shot it, the video. We were going to get a chance. I wasn't going to get a chance to see it. Marco was going to get a chance to take a look at it. And we were going to time out to see if we can negotiate a way to get it. And then the very next day when we were going to go up there, Marco was going to pose as this guy's cousin. And we were going to go drive up way up to the north. And they got a call from, as a military base, both the individual that we were going through and the individual that had the video. And it was like, you know, there's Americans poking around. Have they contacted you? How's the family? You still living at this location? Like, spook the shit out of these guys. So, like, it's like, ah, you know, within grasp. Just, ah. I put out, I went on the biggest podcast in all of Brazil, TV, radio, you name it, in Brazil. Put out huge dollar amounts. Had some really good, hot, what I thought were good leads. People got frustrated because I couldn't get there fast enough. I was like, you need to show me some proof. I'm not going to fly to Brazil with a crew if you don't show me something. I'm like, oh, no, you get here. No, I'm not doing that. You need to show me a couple of frames. Yeah. You know, and it's like, oh, and then, so, you know, this grasping, like, ah. So, we'll just, we'll keep going. We'll keep going until I die or I find it. So, you know. Hopefully, you find it first, James. What I want to do, a lot of interest in this, but I'm going to pick a few questions from some listeners to ask you around the documentary, around your work on it. And this is from Barzatak's great name. He says, is there any testimony or evidence you have seen that is genuinely terrifying to you? And that could be related to Virginia or elsewhere. You know, not that long ago, I was at an event, and there was a very high-level government official that investigated in official capacity the phenomenon for over 16 years. And I definitely would consider this individual to be among a handful that would have not the big picture, but a bigger picture. And I asked this individual, I said, how many people have the big picture? I'm going to say the big picture, but the bigger picture. And without a moment's hesitation, this individual is like, 10, about 10 people on the planet. Wow. Okay. What category was you? What's your? I'm one of 30, probably, one of 30. And then he looked over at Hal Puthoff, and he's like, Hal's probably one of 50. I was like, hmm. And Hal looked at me, and he goes, well, if you think of a ruler that's this long, and he kind of goes, like, this long? I've shared about that much with you. What is it, you know? Yeah. You know, but I know, like, whoop, you know. Anyway, so I said, well, I heard, I've heard that the bigger picture is a little scary. And this individual goes, yeah, yeah, I can see that. So I was like, shit, am I going to get, like, you know. I said, well, and this individual was very, like, guarded. Like, I had to, like, slowly take out the crowbar and, you know. Yeah. And I said, like, scary, I need to be concerned about my well-being? Or, like, what do you mean scary? He's like, you know, like, intent. I said, oh, okay, well, intent is evil. Like, is it evil? Like, no, no, you'll be okay. So then I was like, all right, now I've got to go in for the final. And so I was just, like, trying to put together in my head, like, how I'm going to get this next one out of him. And then someone butted in at the event. And, hey, it was so nice to meet you. And I could see a friend of mine on the other side of the room looking at me like, shit. She's like, oh, I know that look on your face when you're getting some juicy. You know, I can see that look in your eyes. So hopefully I'll have another opportunity. So I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, could we be somebody's Petri dish? I guess we could be. I don't know. Is that guy still around then that you were asking? Yeah, not within arm's rigged. But yes. Yeah, I will get another opportunity. I don't know when, but I will. And provided it's okay, I will definitely share it to the world, whatever I find out, whether it's true or not. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it was just like Robert Bigelow, you remember, told me like in 2000, either late 2009 or early 2010, talked about the complexities of disclosure. Little did I know that he had a government contract with OSAP and ATIP at the time, and probably ongoing since 2007. But he said they're walking among us. He told me that. Yeah. Yeah, they're walking among us. And I don't even know. Like, at the time, I was just thinking, I mean, I couldn't dismiss it entirely because of who he was. He invested more money in these intellectual, like, scientific heavyweights of, you know, the community, I guess. And he had all these government contracts. So. Did he still speak to Bob Bigelow? Do you still keep in touch? Nope. No, I mean. Yeah, sorry. I know he had a really tragic circumstance where a grandchild of his passed away incredibly young. And his wife died too. Yeah, and his wife. And, you know, so he's had a tough time of it. But why do you think he pulled away from the UFO topic after being so public and making so many big statements to just drop it? So he wasn't that public. He was actually very private. I mean, yeah, sure. He made some statements and stuff like that. But I know that he has a, he has a, what do you call it? Would it be a vault filled with evidence? Yeah. I know that because I've talked to people that, you know, talk and it's under armed. It was under armed guard 24-7. And he's very, very secretive. Because I remember when I was researching specific cases, I talked to the witnesses. And they're like, yeah. And then someone from like Bob Bigelow's team came here and took all the photographs and the soil samples. I'm like, really? So I remember like over the years, I would talk to Bob. I was like, well, are you, what team are you on? I kind of put it together. Like, what side are you on? And he was kind of on both sides. You know, but he didn't share a lot of the juicy tidbits that he'd learned. And I guarantee you he knows a lot about the crash retrieval. And I think, I think even ATIP or OSAP was going to get their hands on one of these things. I'm pretty sure. OSAP was rumored to be, that's what the money was for a hangar, wasn't it? In the store. Yep. A craft. Yeah. They were going to get something from Lockheed. And at the last minute it fell through. I can't remember. I know George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell talk about that. It might've been Lekatsky that also revealed. But anyway, no, Bigelow, I think probably got as far as he could get with it. Okay. And then his wife died. And I think he became really fascinated by, you know, life after death kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's fair enough. A little sidebar there. Apologies, folks. Derek asks, has James had any success in tracking down the fire officers who reportedly captured the creature first using nets or the eyewitnesses who initially reported the incident to the fire department? Yeah. So, yeah, we have my teammate, Marco Leal, has talked to a couple of face-to-face and one of them, unfortunately, has passed, who basically confirmed the capture with nets, but not on camera. But there is a recording that we have of this individual talking about it. But my understanding, unfortunately, is that I think the recording was done without his permission. But he might have died. I'm pretty sure that one, that individual died. So to answer your question, yes. And we've had a lot of the more compelling, not a lot, but some of the more compelling aspects of this case have been told to us like, I'm going to tell you, but off the record. Yeah. You know, hey, I'll take what I can get. You know, sure. Let's go. What can you tell me? You know? And do you know what? See, when people hear that, I imagine they'll be frustrated, as you would be hearing the same thing. But I think what people have to appreciate is if you hear something off the record, sure, you can't put it into your documentary, but you can allow it to influence your direction. You can allow it to influence what you show, what you don't show. And it does help you create a narrative and a better picture. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. And you know what? It keeps me going. And if I'm allowed to, without giving reference, and I'll ask the individuals, hey, can I say I heard this? Some of them say yes. I've had one individual say no. This individual is like, they're going to know exactly who it came from. I said, how do you know? Trust me, they will. It's like, okay, so I can't even do that. So I've got specifics on crash retrievals that I can't ever say publicly. And if I violate that trust, nobody's going to ever meet with me again. So because people go, well, why can't you tell us? It's like, well, if I do, then my access is cut off and no one's going to trust me again. And I can't do that. And at the end of the day, that piece of information, I can't verify it. People listening and watching this can't verify it. So all you do is burn a source. And it's just another little thing out there that doesn't go anywhere. No. Exactly. Exactly. As fun as it could be here, though. You know, these little tidbits can be fun, James. There's another longer question here. Okay. So again, from Derek. In the documentary, James interviews a radiologist from Hospital Regional who conducted x-ray scans on a deceased creature while it was still in a body bag. He also speaks with Dr. Italo, also from Hospital Region, who examined a live creature before it was taken away by the army. Does James have any insight into the timeline between these two events? Were these examinations conducted on the same creature or was a deceased creature captured earlier by the fireman? Alternatively, could it have been a third creature recovered from the crash site? Okay. So good question. And again, there are missing pieces of the puzzle because, but we have very good, I'd say pretty good testimony of the capture with the net. There was an individual that's actually in the movie Archival, we have his name too, and he's still around, but that heard the struggle with the creature and it was crying like a little child when it was in the net. We also heard of a gunshot, like one of them was shot. I'm not sure if it was military or, when you're in the fire department, you're military. When you're in the police department, you're military. When you're like the radar control officer that monitors planes coming in, you're in the military. Yeah. So we were, we had pretty good information that one of them was shot, two were captured alive. That we have really good information about one dead at Humanitas Hospital that was in a, it was in a, it was exposed in a container. A box, I think it was a metal box or it was a wood box, it might be a metal box. And then when we recently pinned down the former chief of police, we're asking like, how many, how many? Because there are other sightings about at the local zoo. There was this elderly lady a couple months later that was having a cigarette break, you know, the same year, but a couple months down, who claimed to have seen one. It looked exactly like the other ones described, but it looked like it had a helmet or something on. So they were like, um, some researchers think there were five, possibly six. Some of them got maybe recovered because there was, I know this sounds crazy, but there was clearly in my opinion, in the opinion of anyone that might watch the film, uh, uh, uh, an extraterrestrial search and rescue operation going on. Um, you know, cause if you look at the memorial, which confused me for a long time in downtown Virginia, it's a disc. Yeah. I'm like a disc isn't what crashed. It was, everyone knows it was a cylindrical shaped cigar shaped object, you know, but a lot of people saw the disc looking and they kept saying it was looking for, how do you know it was looking? I kept saying, talking about it, you know, it's looking for something. He said it was doing a grid search, low and slow back and forth, low and slow back and forth numbers, lots of people. In fact, I just heard another witness who's a nurse talking about it near and around the hospital back in 1996. Um, so most of the activity was, you know, within a week or two, January 20th, earlier, later, but there was activity up to several months later. And in fact, this is the first time where I put it together. We had that video that's taken at night of a disc. It's pretty impressive. It's in the movie. Yeah. I was like, well, wait a minute. This is taken the same year, just a couple months later. And then I looked up the location and I was like, well, that's just Southeast of Virginia as the crow flies, not that far. And it was the same year. Could it be connected? Maybe it was, I don't know, but it's kind of a coincidence, right? Yeah. It's not uncommon. It's not uncommon after some of these cases. Roswell, there's some cases from Russia as well. I've written about in the book where after the incident, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, further objects are seen to be scanning the area. And it looks like some kind of search and rescue. Can they recover it? And it was all those rumors that Roswell was a second crash and the object was there trying to find something else. And, you know, these things can get lost in lore and myth and legend. But it's a really interesting aspect of the cases. And especially when there are beings involved, why wouldn't that potentially be the case? Hey, man, I had a hard time coming to terms with this whole entire episode. I mean, this whole Varginia thing. I mean, I was, there's no one more. I was reading some comments the other day and I had a couple of people who were like, you know what? This is a bridge too far. I'm having a hard time. And I said, yeah, I completely respect your opinion. And I think you should be skeptical. I was beyond skeptical. I was dismissive, right? I mean, there's skeptical and then there's dismissive and then there's complete debunk, right? Yeah. I was in the immediate dismissive category. And every time I learned something new about the case, helipathic communication with the creature, creature in captivity, creature evidently, we don't have the doctors yet, but I'm convinced we will get there of the creature saying he feels sorry for the human race because we don't realize our potential. I mean, we are a bunch of Neanderthals with nuclear weapons. And so go, go, go, go figure that one. Wouldn't surprise me if that was the message they gave us. But, and now then the alleged search and rescue operation with, with these discs flying low and slow. Then I look at the location. I'm like, wow, this is exactly where the vast majority of the activity was. The girls saw the creature, the capture, the military blockade, all within a certain proximity of that. You know what I mean? And then you have all the sightings and I got Google maps for the first time. It's like, oh, this is Fabio Furtado, this farm, crash site right in the middle, two witnesses over here, not that far. How did the creatures get to Virginia? We don't know. Some people speculate there are waterways and there are from that location that end up right around where the girls came in contact with the creature. So like, you know, there's a lot of bits that we don't have pieces of the puzzle yet. We're still looking, but we keep getting more and more and more. And I think this case is going to be, I think it's going to be way more big, significant developments in, in the, in the coming years. I really do got the 30th anniversary. People aren't getting any younger. I mean, we're in touch with general Lima who held the press conference. Yeah. Remember at the end of the film. Yeah. Yeah. And he gave us, he gave us some statements, you know, and we considered using them, but we're, I basically said to, would you answer a question about the case? And he said, well, this is, this is through a translator. And he said, yes, he knows who I am. I said, what would you tell your grandchildren about this case? And that was very strategic on my behalf, because I'm basically asking him to lie to his grandchildren. Yeah. Right. So what would you tell your grandchildren? And he essentially is like, well, you know, it's plausible that we're not alone. And the, the, the proof might've been here in Virginia and it probably happened like right here. And he all but says it bloody well happened. Do you know what I mean? Yep. So now we're pushing him a little further. What he was, he must've been late forties, early fifties and that's 30 years ago. So he's, he's in his eighties now. Yeah. So we might fly up to Brasilia and have a face to face with him and who knows what he'll say. Maybe I'll ask him to sit down with his grandchildren. Yeah. Get them on camera if you can as well. Oh, of course, of course I will. And you've mentioned you're going to be in Brazil next month. Is that for the anniversary? What are the plans around there? The, the town invited me to be a speaker for the 30th anniversary and I agreed. And obviously, you know, with the attention of the new attention on the case, I'm telling you, man, people are looking at Italo's courage. The neuros, everybody knows Italo in town. Everybody does. You know, he's respected. I mean, you know, fellow doctors, fellow, he's a bloody neurosurgeon. You know, he plays piano like Mozart. I went to his local hangout bar restaurant where they play instruments every night, right down the street from where he lives. Got to know all the restaurant owners, became friends with them and all the people he plays musical instruments with. Like really getting in with the community. You know what I mean? Yeah. As one of them, as a friend of theirs, as a, someone who wants to protect, and I made public statements as well. Like we're, we have all eyes on Italo right now. If anyone in the military is considering paying him a visit, I suggest you reconsider it because I'll dedicate the rest of my life to finding and exposing you. And I did that publicly and I had a lot of witnesses come up to me that are considering coming forward just recently. We had a screening in, uh, in, in downtown Virginia just a couple of nights ago with the mayor. And I had people come up to me and said, when you said that, James, you spoke to me, like got my back. Like I can, I can assure you that's resonating. If I, if, if Italo lost his job, I would do a, I'd do a fundraising event for him. I've, I've got these guys' backs forever and they know that, you know, and, uh, we're stronger together. I tell people we're stronger together, power in numbers. Now's the time. This is the case. Let's go. You talk about power in numbers, stronger together. On that note, you've mentioned a potential updated version of the press club event that happened back in 2001. Can you talk much about potentially putting one of those back on again in the coming weeks, months, I imagine next year, and what something like that could look like and why it would be powerful? There will be, uh, an announcement coming soon. That's as far as I could take it. The Smiths once had a famous song, How Soon Is Now? Are we? Is soon, is soon, soon, or? Soon, soon. Soon, soon. Okay. Yeah. The reason why the people I'm involved with are, really put their foot down and said, you just, you know, certain aspects have leaked out, but I promise you, um, there will be an announcement very soon. Cool. And is that US based? Uh, all of the above. All of the above. Okay. Cool. That's good to know. Well, what I want to do before we finish off, James, um, and of course, if people want to, and I encourage you to rent, to buy, to support James, support this case, support the people who have come forward bravely to tell their stories and still continue to do so, um, to get a copy of this. All the links are in the description. There's a genius link. It's available on YouTube, Amazon, Apple TV. You can get it on multiple different platforms, but you can check those out. Um, it is, uh, you know, and this is a personal, this has nothing to do with James. Um, age of disclosure for me was very expensive for what it was. And there was a huge discussion around the cost. Um, this is far less than age of disclosure and as a hell of a piece of work that James has put together. And that's just for me worth the price alone to see the testimony. If it was just that additional 25, 30 minutes of footage. So I would encourage folks to go and do that, James. Um, but listen on 2025, I want to just very quickly quickfire around as little or as much as you want to say about each of these things. Okay. Um, first off the sky watcher organization started the year with some big claims, some potential data. Uh, you know, they were going to summon new AP. What's your thoughts on the whole sky watcher situation? Well, uh, you know, you're, you're going to fail a hundred percent of time. You don't try. Right. Yeah. And Hey, look, I've been very optimistic about finding this video. And I know that people can get frustrated with, with how some of my sentiments and you get really close sometimes, I don't know. It's hard to say it's, I, I've, I've learned not to make predictions because it can bite you in the ass. Um, you know, am I still optimistic about finding the video? Of course. I mean, like I said, you're going to fail 100% of the time that you don't try. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, that's totally fair. Um, I remember the night I said to my wife about doing this podcast and she was like, why wouldn't you? And I went, well, what if no one listens? And she was like, well, what if someone does? And here we are. Um, so, uh, speaking of documentaries, Age of Disclosure finally came out in November. I know you've been very positive about it. Online social media. What's your take on Age of Disclosure and its potential impact going forward? Well, I, you know, a lot of people, I felt the frustration within, within the intel community and, and, you know, Dan Farah, uh, put everything into that film. He couldn't find distribution, which is ridiculous. I mean, I couldn't believe that Netflix didn't, I mean, Marco Rubio, Gillibrand, Rounds, Clapper. I mean, these are household names, right? And they're saying some pretty extraordinary stuff. So I know that the UFO community and myself included, like, Hey, it really was expensive. I saw behind the scenes with Dan Farah, just how much he was going into debt. Like he had to eventually do a rollout independent and put up all, whatever life savings he had and he put it all in. So I understand the risk there. And I understand that he wants to recoup his investment. I get all that, you know, and it's like, you know, if I could give away my work for free, but I swear on my life, I would, I'm a half million dollars in debt right now. You know, for making this film, I'm trying to recoup so I can keep doing what I love doing. I'd be doing it for free. If I could, I was, I used to paint houses, park cars, dig ditches, bend rebar. So I can just continue doing what I'm doing. I would say that us hardcore UFO community, did we learn a lot? No, but it was the first time that I personally at that level have seen the acknowledgement, the alleged, you know, acknowledgement of this UAP crash retrieval program at the highest government levels. And that, as some people say, oh, well, it's a, you know, what do they call it? They called it a, come on, like it was a deep state kind of. Psy-off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Psy-off. I'm like, well, they're not really saying anything that I didn't already know. So they're confirming what I, all my field research has confirmed. And the fact that the president's out of the loop and all this stuff. So I don't know, I thought it was a step in the right direction for mainstream. If you look at the amount of mainstream news coverage he got, that was unprecedented. We got a lot with, with the phenomenon. Yeah. That was unprecedented. If you look at like how much mainstream media I've gotten, and I've been on every TV show, I've been on Anderson Cooper. I've been on Tucker Carlson. I've been on Larry King nine times. Nightline, Dateline. I mean, I've been on a lot of MSNBC. When I did a documentary on alleged crash retrieval with live aliens walking through town, my phone didn't ring at all. This was complete grassroots, you know, podcast, Rogan, and a handful of others that got the word out, right? Because there hadn't been congressional hearings when we dropped this first one. And I'm kind of, honestly, I'm kind of anticipating the same thing on this rollout because it's, I think it's a little bit too much for mainstream. They can't process. This is my God. And unfortunately, they're the ones that are out of the loop. They're the ones out of touch. And that's fine. I get it. Hey, I was making my second doc on UFOs when I heard about this. It was a bridge too far for me as well. So I get that. But this is a grassroots effort. People like yourself and others getting this out in an entirely different way. We are bypassing the mainstream media altogether, right? Yeah. And we're getting this information out on a grander scale. And it happens more organically. And it's happening slower. But it's happening. So anyway, I got on a sidetrack. But Age of Disclosure wasn't for us. It was for more of a mainstream audience, the uninformed. And I think it did its job. And it's doing its job. If I'm Dan Farah and I bring you that finished product and say, James, what would you change about it? Is there anything you would add in? Yeah. I mean, I sat there and watched it. And I'm an editor. And I put things together. And yeah, I definitely was a lot of talking heads. I would have wanted more breathing room. It's dry. Yeah. You know, but hey, it's easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize. I can assure you that team worked extremely hard. Those shots were beautifully shot. I mean, some of those B-roll shots. I mean, look, man, it's so easy to criticize someone else's efforts. But overall, sure, I can always make suggestions as an editor, as a filmmaker. Hey, I would have done it more like this. But that's the job got done. And I think it is making an impact. I really do. Quick take on Steven Spielberg's trailer for Disclosure Day, which is looking huge. Yeah, I know. Spielberg knows a lot more. Obviously, we know that. It was a little spookier than I wanted it to be. Okay. I thought it was a little spookier. Obviously, anything Spielberg is going to be super top notch. You know, I anticipated more of kind of behind the scenes within the executive branch and listening to the pros and cons of Disclosure and how to go about the execution of such an endeavor. That's what I kind of was expecting. More of an Oppenheimer, but with UFOs. Yes. Like, you know, that kind of. Okay. Exactly. That's what I was kind of expecting. But hey, you know, we'll see. Awesome. I'm glad it's happening. And James, you said you don't like to be the guy who makes predictions. So I'm going to ask you, if I was your grandchildren asking you for three predictions for 2026, to throw that back at you, what would your predictions be for the next year that we're going to see here? I think we're going to experience the biggest civilian effort to force the government's hand on more transparency. That's what I predict. And I think, look, we all have our gripes. People, you know, I've got certain feelings about various people within the field. And I know people feel that way about me as well. That's fine. But I say to all of us that we're stronger together, that we should focus on a common goal. We should lock arms and get the job done. So that's more important than our petty differences. Awesome. Lawson James, final words from you. How can folks watch your work, including Moment of Contact, New Revelations of Alien Encounters? I put the last several of my films, in fact, I think I put all of my films on various streaming platforms. You can Google YouTube movies, which was no easy feat. They turned the phenomenon down for several years. They've got a couple hundred million subscribers, which is great. You can watch them for free on streaming. Right now, I think the only film that's for sale to purchase, to rent, is Moment of Contact, New Revelations of Alien Encounters. And you can find that on Amazon. I think you mentioned all the various platforms. But just do a Google search. I think the vast majority is on YouTube movies. And I know that would be available in English-speaking territories. But also, yeah, Amazon and Apple. Is there any way it's more financially beneficial for you, for people to buy it or rent it? Well, YouTube movies is free for them. And they have run commercials. And they pay the filmmakers. Cool. YouTube movies pays the filmmakers. I haven't gotten a check yet, but I heard they pay their filmmakers relatively well. Awesome. So those are the ways you can support James. James, as always, mate, thank you very much for joining me. And hopefully, I'll have you back on soon, soon to discuss some more information and work you're working on just now. Find me on X, at James C. Fox. And I promise you, I will post all the latest developments. I'll make a big post next week. It'll be on X, at James C. Fox. 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, add 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.