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Disclosure Debate: Are UFOs Alien Tech? Avi Loeb vs Michael Shermer — Transcript

by Dr Brian Keating · 13,562 words · 2,106 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00the scientific approach is indeed
0:03should be guided by evidence and we
0:05shouldn't have a prejudice. We shouldn't
0:08have
0:10a view about the outcome before we see
0:13the evidence. Now, one reason I have you
0:16in the council is so that
0:18you know,
0:20those believers will attack you instead
0:23of me for using the scientific method.
0:26>> I have to say Brian the the the vitriol
0:29on both sides. It's amazing what people
0:31say about each other.
0:33Not just on X but on X is especially bad
0:36but
0:37you know, as I've gotten to know Avi
0:38pretty well. I'm just amazed by the
0:41stuff that people the they talk
0:42about him. It's like oh my God. I mean
0:44this is ridiculous. He's not at all like
0:46this. And and yet you know, and and then
0:49people of course they hate on me and
0:51they hate on the believers or whatever.
0:53I don't know. It just there seems to be
0:56it's almost political, right? I mean
0:57it's like politics.
0:59>> The way the way to think about it is
1:01what people say reflects on them more
1:03than on the subject that they are
1:05talking about. We see that a lot in
1:06politics. We see it but we see it in
1:09science as well. And
1:11the way to distinguish between truth and
1:14what people are saying is to look at the
1:16primary sources. So if someone says that
1:19I said something, go ahead and check if
1:23Avi said that thing.
1:25And when you check the primary sources,
1:28you will realize that I didn't say that
1:30thing. And that's the way science is
1:32done by the way. We go to nature to the
1:35data that is collected by instruments to
1:37tell us what is out there rather than
1:41talk about what is out there which is
1:43very common on social media. You just
1:45say what you think is out there but
1:47that's not necessarily what is out
1:49there. Most of the time we are wrong. So
1:51the same is true when you say that a
1:53person you know, should be
1:58you know, dismissed because he said this
2:00and that. We should check if that person
2:02actually said that. And unfortunately,
2:05social media is such a shallow
2:08platform that people don't really go to
2:11the primary sources. They don't really
2:13check.
2:14Just yesterday, someone was saying that
2:16I said bad things about Jay Stratton. I
2:19didn't say I said only positive things
2:21about Jay Stratton.
2:24Personally, if you look at my essay, I
2:26only
2:26gave his credentials and I said that we
2:29should look for the evidence behind what
2:32he's talking about, which is exactly
2:34what I'm saying right now. It's not a
2:35bad thing to say that about Jay
2:38Stratton. It's about the fact that, you
2:40know, enough with storytelling, enough
2:43with verbal testimonies. We are at an
2:46age where it's time for us to look at
2:49the evidence. And that's what I'm
2:51saying. I think that resonates very well
2:53with what the public wants. If Jay
2:56Stratton says there is a spacecraft
2:59that is withheld within government or
3:01within corporations, I want to see the
3:04spacecraft. What could be more natural
3:06than that? Before I believe it. And
3:10someone may say, well, he's worried
3:11about showing the spacecraft because he
3:15might get
3:17something, you know, retaliation.
3:20I say, well, he doesn't need to show it
3:22to me. He doesn't need to show it to
3:24Michael. He doesn't need to show it to
3:25the council. He can go straight to the
3:28White House and have a guided tour of
3:31President Trump to the spacecraft. The
3:33only person who would know about it is
3:35President Trump. There is no doubt that
3:37President Trump is interested in this
3:39subject. Why? Because he put a directive
3:41out. He sees a political benefit from
3:44being the person who provides the
3:46revelation about alien intelligence. You
3:49know, that would be a huge event.
3:50President Trump will be remembered for
3:52thousands of years just by making this
3:56uh
3:57recognition that we are not alone, that
3:59there is that we are not perhaps at the
4:01top of the cosmic food chain. So, it
4:03will be a great political boon for
4:05President Trump. There is no doubt that
4:07he wants it. And so, I'm saying Jay
4:09Stratton, you know about a spacecraft,
4:12go ahead and and give the inside
4:15information straight to President Trump.
4:17I'm not asking to know about it myself,
4:20but if you want, I'll be to help.
4:22>> I I heard the exact same thing from
4:23Michael Shermer a couple months ago when
4:25he was on my show for his wonderful new
4:27book. And he was using not President
4:30Trump, Marco Rubio. But I have a better
4:32idea. How about Councilwoman Luna? And
4:34by the way, Avi, you're very close with
4:36her. She did a, you know, kind of a
4:37glow-up shot of herself visiting your
4:40Harvard Observatory and looked looked
4:43through the telescope during the day.
4:45Why isn't she, you know, just opening up
4:47the kimono? Here's everything we know.
4:49And I I I respect her. She has no
4:51whistleblower concerns whatsoever. She
4:53has no security, no doxing concerns. She
4:55she has every right and every
4:57responsibility as the chairwoman. Is
4:59this just a manifestation, either one of
5:02you guys, of the Peter Principle which
5:03we have in academia? The Peter
5:05Principle, you fail up to the level of
5:07your incompetence. You rise to the level
5:08of your incompetence. We have a thousand
5:11deans and so forth. Why are there so
5:13many directors of different task force,
5:15Avi? Is this is this some like some way
5:16to like who are these people? We have
5:19Lue Elizondo, David Grusch, Anna Luna,
5:21Jay Stratton now, Christopher Mellon,
5:24all these people who have podcasts and
5:25books and appearances. Who the hell are
5:28these people? And why isn't the one at
5:30the top of the food chain, the
5:31chairwoman of the congressional
5:32committee on this task force, why isn't
5:34she just opening up the kimono like you
5:35just said?
5:37>> Well, so first of all, it's obvious that
5:39the US government sees objects they
5:40don't understand. The fundamental
5:42question is do they represent
5:44alien technology, non-human made
5:46technologies? That's a very simple
5:48question, and if there is a spacecraft
5:50the way that Jay Stratton claims he saw,
5:54if there are alien bodies the way Jay
5:56Stratton claims he saw, then it's a
5:59very, you know, straightforward thing
6:02because the only thing we need is to see
6:05digital evidence, either video footage
6:08or an actual the actual material of
6:11these objects. We are not talking
6:13philosophy here. We're talking about
6:15real things that were seen and perhaps
6:17uh very likely documented because the
6:20people who held them have documentation.
6:23So, all we need is access to the primary
6:26sources, like I said before. Now, you
6:29may ask, "Why isn't the information
6:31delivered to Congress people like uh
6:34Representative Luna, Representative
6:35Burchett, Representative Burchett?" All
6:38of them are very eager to promote this
6:40disclosure, and they were exposed to
6:43some data from the US government, but
6:46it's not
6:47uh available to everyone, and it's not
6:50uh you know, we don't know how
6:52conclusive it is. I don't think it has
6:55to do with the kind of material evidence
6:57I was talking about. It's probably
6:58mostly footage. But, to your question,
7:02there are lots of people who used to
7:03work within government, within a project
7:06that was funded to study those UAP, uh
7:10and how far does the data goes go? We
7:13don't know, okay? So, these people have
7:16the duty now because President Trump is
7:19very interested. There is a a memorandum
7:22written by the Deputy Director of
7:25National Intelligence, Aaron Lucas, who
7:28says that all
7:30uh non-disclosure agreements are waived.
7:34These people are encouraged that not
7:36supposed to
7:37to worry about legal repercussions, and
7:40they can approach the pursuing. is the
7:43team that is following on the
7:45presidential unsealing and reporting
7:48system for UAP encounters. Now, if they
7:50are worried about legal repercussions
7:53and they don't believe the pursuit team,
7:55they can go straight to Steven Miller in
7:57the White House and they will have a
8:00direct line to the president where they
8:02can share the information. And believe
8:05me, these people will not face any legal
8:08repercussions if they reveal it to the
8:11president of the United States.
8:12>> why aren't they doing it? Why aren't
8:13they coming forward? Why aren't they
8:15addressing this consideration which you
8:17and I talked about called the residual
8:19of anomalies that will never go away.
8:21Why aren't these people just being
8:23straightforward and honest? I feel like
8:24disclosures like nuclear fusion, it's
8:26the disclosure of the future and it
8:28always will be.
8:30>> Yeah, I guess if I I had to anticipate
8:33what they might say, it would be
8:34something like fear of
8:36retaliation or whatever. Jay Stratton
8:38told Fox News Brett Baier Monday night
8:41or Tuesday night that
8:43it's too intense was the word he used.
8:45That actual disclosure where the
8:48American public or anybody could
8:50actually see the alien bodies and ships,
8:52it would be too intense for the American
8:54public to handle. Okay, I don't believe
8:56any of this. This is kind of the the old
8:58the old line of they don't want to
9:00disclose whatever it is you're for
9:02because it'll cause the stock market to
9:04collapse and people will lose their
9:05religious beliefs and so on.
9:07>> But they do want to disclose. Sorry,
9:08sorry. They do want to disclose because
9:10they want to distract from Epstein,
9:11right, Michael? So, how can you have it
9:13both ways?
9:13>> Uh I I don't think anybody would say
9:16that. That is one conspiracy theory
9:18about why Trump
9:20or any of the others in the mega
9:22community are interested in the subject
9:23to distract us from the Iran war or
9:26whatever. No, I don't think that's it.
9:28They may say that they're worried about
9:31uh people concerned about the
9:32religiosity. We've had polls for decades
9:35from religious um, pollsters uh, asking
9:38people, "Would you be bothered about
9:41your religiosity if we discovered
9:43extraterrestrial intelligences somewhere
9:45out there or even here?" And the answer
9:47is no, not at all. You know, if God is
9:49omniscient and omnipotent, he can do
9:50anything he wants. He can make as many,
9:52uh, not only exoplanets, but as many
9:55intelligent life forms on those planets
9:56as he wants. Right? So, it doesn't
9:58really bother anybody. As for the stock
10:00market, you know, they've always said
10:02that, "Why don't we find out about X,
10:04whatever it is?" Uh, and because the
10:06stock market would collapse. Okay,
10:07there's no evidence that any of this
10:08would happen. If anything, uh, it would
10:11cause AI companies and NASA and space
10:15propulsion system companies and so on
10:17to, um, you know, to actually boost
10:19their budgets. Uh, you know, NASA could
10:21go to Congress and go, "We found the
10:23aliens, and now we need to, you know, 2x
10:25our budget so that we can deal with
10:27them." And so on. Anyway, I
10:29The real reason I think Yeah.
10:32>> Think about it in the following way.
10:34Suppose
10:35you you find a tennis ball in your
10:37backyard, and and your family is not
10:39aware that you have a neighbor, even
10:41though you see a lot of houses on your
10:43street. It's just that the mainstream
10:46within your family claims that these are
10:49houses may be empty. That's what the
10:51academic community claims, and
10:54the academic community says it's an
10:56extraordinary claim to think that the
10:59empty houses, meaning all the habitable
11:02Earth-Sun systems, where you know, in
11:05the Milky Way galaxy, there are billions
11:06of them, uh,
11:08all of these have no intelligence that
11:11ever emerged on them, or we can't, uh,
11:14imagine anyone being as intelligent as
11:16we are. And so, the family says, "We
11:20have no neighbor." But you find a tennis
11:22ball that is clearly manufactured, not a
11:24rock. Okay?
11:26I think it makes no sense to hide it
11:29from the family members because that's
11:31the reality of the situation. And the
11:33neighbor may show up in the front door.
11:35There may be many other ways by which it
11:38will affect the neighbor, will affect
11:40the life of your family. And it's the
11:42same way that for the Vatican to put
11:45Galileo in house arrest made no sense,
11:48because the fact that the Earth moves
11:50around the Sun rather than the other way
11:51around, you know, is is an existential
11:55fact that will not be changed by
11:57preventing the information from leaking
11:59to the public. It it is a lost battle.
12:02There is no point in denying the reality
12:05of the situation. So, for the same
12:07reason, if we have a neighbor, let
12:09everyone know about it, and let's adapt
12:11to that. You know, just like we adapt to
12:13AI being potentially more intelligent
12:15than we are in the coming decade like
12:17the mathematician
12:18>> to I want to get to that because that is
12:20certainly on everybody's mind, including
12:23this context of superintelligence, which
12:24is uncontrollable, unpredictable. Um and
12:27you know, that brings up a question that
12:28I've had for for both of you guys for
12:30quite some time, but I'll start with
12:32Avi. You know, why would they send
12:33around these non-human biologicals as
12:35David Grusch has called them? Why why
12:37would they send around these, you know,
12:38meat bags, you know, instead of sending
12:40around a silicon brain? My Avi, why why
12:43would they go to the trouble of this?
12:44And so, isn't it a priori unlikely that
12:47when they say something is bipedal and
12:49it's and it is non-human and is
12:51biological, that we have to put a
12:53Bayesian prior that very, very low on
12:55that claim? What do you think, Avi?
12:58>> Well, I should say that the most likely
13:01um
13:02entity to make it,
13:04uh you know, let's say between stellar
13:06systems,
13:08uh is probably technological rather than
13:10biological because of the long travel
13:12times, because of the hazardous
13:14conditions. But, uh following on von
13:18Neumann's idea, self-replicating
13:21probes make a lot of sense. In other
13:23words, even we are Elon Musk is now
13:26talking about his robots being able to
13:29use raw materials to reproduce
13:30themselves. And we know that in biology,
13:33that's exactly what happens when the
13:34dandelion flower sheds its seeds and
13:37they fly in the wind, they find a
13:39fertile ground and create more dandelion
13:41flowers. So, technologically speaking,
13:44it makes more sense to send the
13:45information that to you want to
13:48replicate in the
13:50the destinations. And the in the case of
13:53the Earth, suppose they had that object
13:55objective and
14:003D printers, you know, machines that are
14:03capable of producing. Now, what would
14:04you like If you wanted to produce
14:06animals, let's say that are
14:09adaptable to the environment, you would
14:12look around and see what kind of animals
14:15exist on Earth and then sample them and
14:18try to 3D print something similar to
14:21them that would survive on Earth. So, I
14:23can imagine a situation like that where
14:26you we will find biological stuff, but
14:28it will be synthetic biology. It will
14:30not be natural biology the way we think.
14:33So, these will be 3D printed or
14:36synthetic biology produced
14:38biological entities that can survive on
14:40Earth because these things came from far
14:42away. Every planet has its
14:45different conditions that allow
14:47different animals to live on it. So,
14:49instead of bringing the animals as
14:51pilots, makes no sense to bring them as
14:54pilots, but it makes a lot of sense to
14:57reproduce animals that are already there
14:59and put the in them whatever you need in
15:01order to use the equipment that you
15:04bring. So, that's the only
15:06>> yeah.
15:06>> Yeah, last time Avi was on, he's very
15:09colorful, he has lots of wonderful
15:10analogies and one of them was, if you
15:12see an ant,
15:13there's that's he's not alone,
15:15basically. You're cleaning out your
15:16kitchen, they're in in in Santa Barbara,
15:20all of a sudden you see an ant, and you
15:22can be pretty sure according to Avi that
15:24he's not alone. Uh he used that in the
15:26context of, you know, sightings and
15:28anomalies that we talked about. But, I
15:31want to say that in the context of you
15:32as a skeptic.
15:34Is there only one skeptic on this
15:37committee? Because if there is, it's
15:39kind of worrisome to me. I I wouldn't go
15:41on a committee that, you know, I I felt
15:43like I would get no back. I I don't have
15:44your courage, though. I don't have the
15:46the the cojones that you have. Tell me,
15:48Michael, was that a concern of yours?
15:50Are you alone? And not just in the
15:51universe, but not on the committee.
15:53>> No. No. I mean, Avi just said they're
15:55all skeptics. I mean, if you asked
15:57everybody on the committee, they'd all
15:58go, "Yeah, of course I'm skeptical."
16:00Now, the question is is, I I suppose,
16:02well, what do you mean by skeptical,
16:03right? So, I, you know, for me, the null
16:06hypothesis is that aliens are not here.
16:09Now, I could be wrong. There could be
16:10very, you know, I think it's highly
16:12likely there are aliens somewhere in the
16:13cosmos. Have they come here? I think
16:14it's a separate question. I think it's
16:16highly unlikely, but okay. Uh show us,
16:19and then I'll change my mind tomorrow,
16:21right? Avi and I have that bet. So,
16:23uh so, that that's always been bothering
16:25me about the disclosure projects that
16:27all these UAP whistleblowers talk about.
16:30Like
16:31like what one of the other excuses,
16:33besides the stock market will collapse
16:34and people will lose their religiosity,
16:35is that they themselves may have their
16:38lives or careers threatened. And yet,
16:40there they are on Fox News, on Joe
16:44Rogan, telling tens of millions of
16:45people what they know.
16:47But, if when Joe or whoever presses for
16:50evidence, what can can what where are
16:52these space Oh, I can't tell you.
16:54All's I can tell you is that we're not
16:56alone in the universe. Okay, that is a
16:58massive statement. That's one of the
17:00most revelatory statements ever made in
17:02the history of humanity, that there's
17:04other life forms. You can't just say
17:06that and go, "I'm not going to show
17:07you." So, my analogy is the biologist
17:09that goes to the the the big biology
17:12conference and says, "I found another
17:14bipedal primate
17:16uh who has language and developed a
17:18culture and so on. And it'd be like, "Oh
17:20my god, you mean Bigfoot or something
17:22like that or the Hobbit people or
17:23whatever? Oh oh my god, well where are
17:25they?" "Oh, I can't tell you."
17:28Okay, it'd be like, "Well, thank you
17:29very much. That's interesting, but you
17:31know, when you can tell us, get back to
17:32us, right? In the meantime, I'm going to
17:34write a book about it, going on Fox
17:36News, going on Rogan."
17:37You know, the problem is is that this
17:39not just a one-off.
17:41Uh Brian, there you know, this has been
17:42going on for decades.
17:44You know, the Disclosure Project started
17:46by Steven Greer in '93. I mean, we've
17:48been hearing these stories. It's coming
17:50any day now.
17:51>> Yeah.
17:51>> Okay, so I'm a long-time watcher of
17:53this. It's like, "Okay, come on. Let's
17:55do it." And um you know, so there was
17:58Jay Stratton Tuesday night saying, "It's
18:00too intense. I can't show you. All I can
18:02tell you is we're not alone in the
18:03universe." Okay, sorry. That's not
18:05enough.
18:06>> tell Avi Loeb? I mean, Avi, you have a
18:08vested interest. We've talked about
18:10that. You have a vested interest.
18:12>> Yeah, we you have a vested interest.
18:14>> I actually met Jay Stratton
18:17a few weeks ago um
18:19in Utah at a conference, and I I invited
18:21him to speak with the council, but he
18:23did not respond to my invitation. But I
18:25should say that two things I wanted to
18:28to mention is how science is done, and
18:30people need to understand that. So, we
18:33have no
18:34prejudice. So, when
18:36the Pentagon reports about six dots in
18:40the sky that they cannot understand,
18:42they call them UAP. They declassify
18:45the video in the infrared
18:48on September 18th. And then the council
18:53looks into that, and that's a study led
18:56by Jacob Haqq-Misra. We ended up writing
18:59a paper showing that the brightness of
19:02these six dots fluctuates periodically,
19:05just like you expect from birds flapping
19:07their wings. Now, it's not as if we
19:10started with this notion, because even
19:11the Pentagon didn't know that these are
19:13birds. They call them UAP because they
19:15didn't know what they are. But just
19:16analyzing the brightness is a function
19:18of that. Taking a Fourier transform of
19:20that, seeing a period eight times per
19:22second, comparing to Galileo project
19:25data on birds, we have a lot of birds
19:27that we see. Then we see that there is a
19:30match, that the brightness fluctuations
19:33of the six dots that the Pentagon is
19:35reporting about matches what the birds
19:39are doing in the Galileo project data.
19:41That's how science is done. Second
19:43point, we don't have good enough data on
19:46most of the reports that are in the
19:48tranches, six tranches from the
19:50Pentagon.
19:51Therefore, the conclusion is not that we
19:53let's imagine what these things are.
19:56Instead, the conclusion is let's collect
19:58better data. So my hope is we will
20:01partner with the Pentagon, do
20:03experiments with new sensors in the
20:06locations where they see those unusual
20:08objects. Why? Because at the very least,
20:11if you have a down-to-earth approach,
20:13you would say these are national
20:14security risk. We're dealing with
20:17espionage by Chinese drones that we
20:20haven't yet identified. So let's figure
20:23them out, and I'll be happy to help the
20:25Pentagon and the intelligence community
20:27fulfill their mission. That's the
20:29minimum that we will do. But of course,
20:32if it happens to be alien technology,
20:35this will be huge. Now,
20:37how do we promote that? So I'm also
20:40working
20:41to get the funding to a UAP X Prize,
20:46which means $10 million
20:47allocated to whoever brings
20:51evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
20:53on unidentified anomalous phenomena
20:56being associated with alien technology.
20:59And we can a half ago I
21:02attended a gathering in the home of
21:06Peter Diamandis along with Gary Nolan
21:08and Peter Skafish. And
21:12to my
21:13I mean fortune, I also the same day had
21:16a brunch with a potential funder, and
21:18that would be really nice because it
21:20will encourage scientific research.
21:23People will now have a prize to gain if
21:26they demonstrate alien technology. But
21:28also, if there is anyone that is has the
21:32spacecraft that Jay Stratton is talking
21:34about in in their possession, uh they
21:36can get the the X Prize. Now, if they go
21:39to President Trump, President Trump can
21:41get the X Prize. And I think it will
21:45bring more transparency into the
21:47subject, either through research or
21:49through anyone that already has the
21:50evidence.
21:51>> Now, with with regard to why people
21:53wouldn't come forward,
21:55uh it seems like there's a lot of
21:57vitriol. Obviously, Michael even talked
21:59about I want to get to his his Boston
22:01Globe op-ed, which is paywalled, but he
22:03sent me a free version. Uh but the the
22:06reason I I might think is because of
22:09some things that Anna Paulina Luna has
22:11said about former director of of Arrow,
22:14the All Domain Anomaly Resolution
22:16Office. Avi, you connected me to Sean
22:17Kirkpatrick. I never got so much
22:19hostility, hate, vitriol directed at me,
22:22at him. And maybe it's because of things
22:24that she said. She said, quote, "Sean
22:27Kirk Kirkpatrick," she spelled it wrong,
22:29"he's a documented liar, a deep state
22:31shill, and someone who lied to the
22:33public while intimidating and or
22:35discrediting witnesses." This is pretty
22:37awful. And her communications director,
22:40David Leatherwood, has also responded to
22:41criticism of the UAP hearings. Why would
22:44anybody come forward? I mean, why
22:45Michael would you risk your reputation
22:48if you're in government? Why why would
22:49you want to lead this? So, it's not only
22:50a residual of anomalies, it's a residual
22:53of true believers that get left to lead
22:55these committees like potentially, I
22:57don't know Jay Stratton at all except
22:58what Avi tweeted about him.
23:00But but but people like that that will
23:02just have this this fanfare and and
23:04celebration from people like Luna and uh
23:06her her, you know, her workers.
23:09Why would anybody come forward that has
23:11the on the counter side of the issue?
23:13The devil's advocate.
23:15>> Yes. Well, I mean, if there's one real
23:18reason I suspect that has to do with
23:20national security. And that whatever it
23:22is that people are seeing these UAPs,
23:25they may be our own advanced technology
23:28or actually crash retrieval
23:31um technology from foreign assets. I
23:33mean, there's always been crash
23:34retrieval programs all the way back to
23:36World War I where we capture the uh
23:38enemies airplanes and see what they're
23:40using. Yeah. Uh you know, that's why
23:42like in the B-17s over Nazi Germany,
23:45they you know, if a plane was going
23:47down, they had to try to get rid of the
23:49Norden bomb site um device because we
23:52don't want them to know how we're you
23:54know, using these
23:55accuracy technologies for our bombs,
23:57right? So, uh I suspect that the vast
24:00majority of these UAPs are just our own
24:03technology, just the next version of you
24:05know, the U-2 spy plane or the SR-71
24:08Blackbird or the stealth bomber or or or
24:10whatever the CIA and DARPA is maybe
24:12developing super advanced drones or you
24:15know, spy balloons or whatever,
24:16something that we just don't know about
24:18yet and that maybe this is what people
24:20are seeing and that somebody in the
24:23government is just like, we don't we
24:24don't want people to to know what's
24:26actually going on for national security
24:27reasons.
24:28>> Yeah, it's called black projects,
24:30Michael.
24:30>> Exactly.
24:31>> Yeah.
24:32>> Yeah.
24:33>> So, if these are I mean, what what Avi,
24:35what's your null hypothesis?
24:38>> Oh, I have no null hypothesis. I just
24:41wanted data to guide us because, you
24:43know, Steven Spielberg
24:45uh
24:46you know, made the script for disclosure
24:48day based on everything he heard. Uh and
24:53um
24:53you know,
24:55to me that that is um
24:57that could be very misleading cuz uh
25:00people say a lot of things that are
25:02wishful thinking. Uh and frankly, I
25:05didn't find Disclosure Day to be an
25:07inspiring movie. I mean, the main
25:10characters
25:11that are trying to unravel the truth are
25:13being chased by the government. Their
25:15car is crashed against the moving train.
25:18My car is intact and I'm actually fine.
25:22>> In Boston, Harvard Yard? That's a
25:23miracle, Avi. If your car hasn't been
25:25keyed in Harvard Yard like mine was.
25:28>> Yeah, I mean, the point is if you listen
25:30to
25:31to all the noise that is out there and
25:34you amplify it in a movie,
25:37you know, it doesn't serve any good
25:39purpose. The point is we need to look
25:41for the signal, not the noise. And how
25:44do you find the signal? It's by not
25:46having
25:47a prior, not having a prejudice, and
25:49just trying to collect as much data, as
25:51much evidence because nature is far more
25:54imaginative than Steven Spielberg. And
25:57if we do find I'm not excluding nor
25:59debunking the existence of an alien
26:02visitation. I'm just saying, let's
26:04collect better data so we can tell
26:07whether we are looking at a UAP that is
26:09birds or whether we are looking at a UAP
26:12that is
26:13Chinese drones that are spying on the US
26:16or whether we are looking at alien
26:18technology. The only way to figure it
26:20out is not by speaking to reporters on
26:24Fox News. It's by showing us the
26:26evidence.
26:27>> Yeah, that reminds me of something my
26:29rabbi told me once, Avi, that, you know,
26:31I can believe in Kriyat Yam Suph because
26:34if Cecil B. DeMille can do it in The Ten
26:35Commandments, certainly Hashem can do
26:37it. Michael, before we turn this into a
26:39minion
26:40and get you properly circum- No, we we
26:43don't have to do that, Michael.
26:46Michael, recently David Grusch was on
26:49Joe Rogan and it was an incredibly
26:51wide-ranging interview, but at one point
26:53he mentions our mutual friend, all three
26:55of us are friends with Eric Weinstein.
26:57Uh and he mentioned that he had some
26:59biological material and that he was
27:01hoping to, you know, Eric Weinstein had
27:04some some access, you know, if he could
27:06give Weinstein access to this or maybe
27:08Grusch has his own access to this. Um
27:11what would be worse than giving access
27:13to a completely non-professional
27:15biologist? Eric's a mathematician and
27:17and and works in, you know, formerly
27:19works with Teal Capital. Uh
27:22what what would be the concerns that you
27:24have? What should be the protocol?
27:26Because if you can't maintain prominence
27:28as a scientist, you lose your
27:30traceability matrix. It's over.
27:33>> know. People just shoot off the most
27:35famous names they can think of, I guess,
27:36maybe when they're on Rogan. I have no
27:38idea.
27:39Uh I mean, Eric I mean, he doesn't know
27:41anything about this, right? I mean, we
27:42have uh um biologists on our council.
27:45I'm you know, they would be highly
27:47qualified to to look at this. But but
27:49but forget that. Just the government has
27:51access to
27:53uh you know, professional medical and
27:54and biological scientists that they
27:56could access.
27:57>> What are the protocols about? Would that
27:59corrupt or pollute the provenance of of
28:01such things? I mean, I talked to Tom
28:02DeLonge many years ago, first interview
28:04I think he did on a podcast and
28:07>> He claimed he he he lost access to the
28:08government.
28:09>> thinks. I don't
28:10I don't Why would we care what a rocker
28:12thinks? I mean, come on. Uh I mean, SETI
28:15has a whole uh protocol set up. Like, if
28:17we find the signal, this is what we're
28:18going to do, you know, it's it they'll
28:20be disclosure and so on. The government
28:22has systems in place like this, NASA and
28:25so on. You know, this is what we're
28:26going to do. Okay? So, we don't have to
28:28go through rock stars and and uh and,
28:31you know, I don't know, podcasters or
28:32whatever.
28:34>> I I I should just make an an anecdote
28:36that I met Tom DeLonge last month
28:39and uh
28:41uh I told him
28:42yeah, you you know, I I I don't know how
28:45to sing. I I don't know much how to
28:47sing.
28:48And he said, "Neither do I."
28:51>> He's a local San Diego boy, so
28:54we got to love him here.
28:55But Avi, what would be the the chain of
28:57command custody to prevent, you know,
29:00someone's mentioning in the chat as as
29:02my friend Delong, you know, why not give
29:04it to Gary Nolan? It's Last I checked,
29:07Gary Nolan, yeah, he's he does
29:09immunology, I believe, at Stanford. Yes,
29:11he knows more about biology than me. I
29:12always told you when I dissected a frog
29:15in a ninth-grade biology, the frog came
29:17back to life and started screaming in
29:18agony. So, don't give it to me, but
29:20don't give it to Gary Nolan, either. I
29:22mean, what
29:23just because someone has a degree, does
29:25that make them entitled to, you know,
29:27this this provenance, potentially
29:29contamination chain? And I I like Gary.
29:30You've been on with me and him.
29:32>> Yeah. So, the the way science works is
29:35that the multiple groups
29:37should be able to vet whether the data
29:41implies the same conclusion. And without
29:44that vetting, without the checking
29:46independently,
29:48um you know, we will lose objectivity.
29:51And so, if we have a sample, and I
29:53should say that it's sufficient to tell
29:55if material came from outside the solar
29:58system, my colleague at Harvard, Stein
30:00Jacobson, just needs 1 g of material.
30:03That is plenty. We actually submitted a
30:07paper for publication a month ago that
30:09analyzes
30:10a a nanogram of material, 10 to the
30:13minus nine of a of a gram. So, that we
30:15draw very
30:17high significance, statistical
30:19significance conclusions from that
30:21nanogram. So, giving a gram is a
30:23treasure. So, just to infer isotope
30:26abundances and chemical abundances, a
30:29gram is plenty. In order to do biology,
30:32what you want, of course, is to compare
30:34it to
30:36systems you find here on Earth, life
30:38forms. And by the way, all of them have
30:40the same
30:42chirality, All of the life forms on
30:44Earth. And so, you have a 50% chance if
30:47something came from outside, it's an
30:48opposite chirality. Not that not to
30:50speak about the fact that the DNA
30:53will not be the same. I mean, who said
30:55that universally it has to have, you
30:58know, four bases and so forth.
31:00The point is that it could be very
31:01different. And if you give it to
31:03multiple groups, some of which are let's
31:05say skeptics, some of which are
31:07believers.
31:08If they reach the same conclusions, we
31:10are on a solid footing. And the way
31:12science is done is by allowing multiple
31:15scientists to look into the data. That's
31:17the way we should approach it. And we
31:19have the resources, no problem. We just
31:21need access to the data. And whoever
31:24holds it is
31:26you know, conducting a sin to science
31:29because
31:30whoever has such materials is preventing
31:34the rest of humanity from learning more
31:37about the origin and the potential
31:39intent of those materials. So, if anyone
31:42is listening and they have
31:46access to such materials, I highly
31:48encourage you, whoever holds it, to
31:52share it with the wider
31:56I have with a broad range of expertise
31:58because very likely
32:00either within government or in
32:02corporations, you don't have the
32:05the world's best experts and and and
32:09professionals to deal with such an
32:11exotic origin. And it's not up to the
32:14holder of that material to decide
32:16whether humanity is mature enough to
32:18learn about it. I think,
32:21you know, we should all
32:24figure things out together and grow and
32:26adapt to this reality together. And it
32:28will make our life far more exciting,
32:30you know, to realize that we have a
32:32sibling, that God is not a parent to
32:34only one child, that in fact our
32:37siblings may be more accomplished than
32:39we are, that we can learn from them. It
32:41will bring a sense of humility to our
32:43existence, which we desperately need.
32:46>> Yeah, speak for yourself. I'm not I'm
32:48not I'm the most humble person. Michael,
32:49let me ask you this.
32:50>> Let me just
32:51>> Go ahead. Go ahead.
32:53>> Well, I was just going to add, you know,
32:54since the replication crisis began in
32:562010 in science, particularly psychology
32:59and medical science,
33:01what was discovered is that a lot of
33:03claims about scientific discoveries had
33:06not been replicated. They'd been
33:08published in peer-review journals, but
33:10there are certain flaws there, you know,
33:12that time restraints on the reviewers,
33:14maybe they didn't actually read through
33:15all the data carefully, but also the
33:17reporting in the papers themselves. The
33:20file drawer effect, where, you know, you
33:21run 10 experiments and you get one that
33:24is statistically significant, you
33:26publish that one, you put the others in
33:27the file drawer. No one even knows about
33:29the failed experiments. Or, you know,
33:32p-hacking, where you make the
33:33statistical significance number come out
33:36by throwing out some of the extreme data
33:38points or whatever. There's lots of
33:40problems with that that have now been
33:41resolved. One of which is, don't depend
33:44on one published paper
33:47for any particular conclusion. Wait to
33:49see if it before I should say before
33:52you, you know, announce on a in a press
33:54release that you've made the greatest
33:55discovery since Einstein or whatever.
33:57You should just wait to see if it's
33:59replicated. And before you, you know,
34:02publicize it and make a big deal about
34:04it. And that has gone a long ways to
34:06solving some of these problems that I
34:08think if there was discovery made of
34:11some,
34:12you know, a biologics or non-human
34:14intelligence or technology that we can't
34:16recognize,
34:17you know, you asked about protocols.
34:19Well, yeah, not just one journal, not
34:21just one biologist or one lab.
34:23Everybody, lots of labs, you know, the
34:25adversarial system is really good, where
34:27people compete with each other to debunk
34:29each other. That's the whole point of
34:30the adversarial system. And it works
34:32really well to get to the truth about
34:34what's actually happening.
34:36>> Talk about the the obstacles you
34:38mentioned in the in the Boston Globe
34:39article cuz I know you have to leave in
34:41a few minutes. But talk about the
34:43obstacles. Which one of the obstacles do
34:45you think is the most significant
34:47practical hurdle to your work on the
34:49council?
34:51>> I forget what I what obstacles. I don't
34:53remember talking about obstacles.
34:54>> Yeah, you talked about hurdles. The
34:55videos are filled with redactions,
34:57they're blacked out. There's no
34:58>> Oh, well, I see. Yes, yes, of course.
34:59Yes. So all of us had on the on the
35:01council
35:02have been frustrated by the lack of
35:04information. We we would love the
35:05government to give us more information.
35:08Like what you know, where was this
35:10UAP filmed from? Where you know, what
35:13what camera was used? What was the
35:14distance? What was the speed? You know,
35:16whatever. It would really help us. And
35:19you know, somebody knows.
35:21But you know, maybe again, maybe there's
35:23national security reasons why they don't
35:25want to make that public cuz they don't
35:26want the Chinese or Russians to know how
35:28our cameras work on these jets maybe.
35:30That would be legitimate. But it'd be
35:32nice to know if they'd at least say
35:33that. You know, we would tell you we
35:35would show you the numbers behind this
35:36blacked out box,
35:38but we can't tell you because then the
35:40adversaries
35:41our adversaries would know how our
35:43camera works. Okay. You know, I mean, I
35:45sort of get that. But then why tease us
35:48with all these videos and and
35:50photographs and documents without giving
35:52us full disclosure?
35:54>> Yeah, there there is another point to be
35:56made, Brian, in this context. For
35:58example,
36:00the satellites monitoring the earth with
36:03infrared sensors for ballistic missile
36:05launches, you know, there are a number
36:07of the a large number of those. And over
36:10the past decade, they detected meteor
36:12explosions because when an object like a
36:15rock collides with earth, it burns up in
36:18the atmosphere, generates a fireball,
36:20and these detectors can easily see that.
36:22And so they decided to share the
36:24information with NASA. Now, they don't
36:26show us the footage of the meteor
36:29because that would reveal the level of
36:32high-resolution imaging that they can
36:33accomplish.
36:35But But they give the kinematic
36:37properties of these meteors, the
36:39three-dimensional velocity that they
36:41have, the position, and so forth. And in
36:44the same way, the US government, without
36:46revealing the quality of the instruments
36:48they're using, they can give us more
36:51information about the distance of
36:52objects, the velocity of objects without
36:55revealing what instruments were used to
36:57derive those.
36:58>> Especially things like the Chinese spy
37:00balloon, it's not that they don't want
37:02to reveal our capabilities, they don't
37:03want to reveal the Chinese capabilities.
37:05That's kind of crazy.
37:07But Michael, you're a psychologist by
37:09training, a PhD.
37:11You've been a professional skeptic way
37:12back since, you know, when you were
37:14abducted in the '80s and '90s. We've
37:17talked about that a few times. So, no
37:18one has more incentive out there. People
37:20that, you know, are ranking on Michael
37:21in the comments. Still, he would have
37:23had a great incentive because it would
37:24validate this experience that he had you
37:27know, many decades ago and has stood up
37:29Yes, stood up for But Michael, what is
37:31the psychological kind of background?
37:33Help me and you know, Avi and I are just
37:35simple astrophysicists. But what is the
37:37psychological compulsion to believe, to
37:39not believe, the adversarial kind of
37:42nature of this of this belief?
37:44>> Uh
37:45Well, I do think that behind the the
37:47deeper question is a is a religious
37:49impulse to find out that there's
37:51something out there vastly more
37:53intelligent and and moral and so forth
37:56than us. I mean, that is what the deity
37:59is in most religions. It's that, you
38:01know, there's an entity out there, an
38:02agent, that knows we're here, uh that
38:05created all this, made it happen, and so
38:06on. Uh this is a very old point,
38:08actually, made by Carl Sagan in the
38:10'60s. There's a nice video of him with
38:12Walter Cronkite where he's explaining
38:14that the whole thing, he thinks, is is
38:16like a kind of religion. So, and I And
38:19there's there's research to support
38:20this, you know, that
38:22people that are less religious but have
38:25score high in in um
38:27spirituality, the the desire for awe and
38:29wonder, that sort of thing, there's
38:31measures for this,
38:32are also more likely to believe that
38:34aliens are out there or have come here
38:35than those that are already religious.
38:38So, it it's kind of a filler, I think I
38:41think that's the deeper impulse. Now, I
38:43I did say this to Jill Tarter once and
38:44she was not amused because she says,
38:46"I'm not looking for God. I'm looking
38:47for aliens." Like, okay, I know, but the
38:50deeper matter of why we care. I mean,
38:52what difference does it make whether
38:54we're alone or not? Why do people care
38:55about that? Well, because it is really
38:57touches deep on who we are, where we
38:59came from, what we're doing here, you
39:01know, are we really super unique? Are we
39:03just one of, you know, a near infinite
39:05number of uh intelligences or life forms
39:08in the cosmos? That that would make a
39:09difference existentially about you know,
39:11our kind of place in the in the
39:13universe. So, I know I got to run, so
39:15but I'll I'll wrap up with I'll give the
39:17last word to Lieutenant Commander Alex
39:18Dietrich, who witnessed the 2004 UAP
39:21incident from a USS Nimitz uh fighter
39:24jet as as I think it well sums up 75
39:27years of ufologist search for aliens.
39:29She said, quote, "I think they enjoy the
39:32anticipation more than actually finding
39:34answers."
39:36So, what Avi and I want is answers.
39:38Well, I mean, it's Yeah, I know the
39:40anticipation is big fun, but come on.
39:42It's fun.
39:42>> leave, Michael, I know you got to run,
39:44but before you leave, I I view it
39:46slightly problematic as much as I love
39:48Avi and and I love to um you know, I
39:50won't miss an opportunity to tease
39:52Harvard in any capacity, but do you feel
39:55that there's a danger in centering an
39:58independent research, you know,
40:00organization like the council under
40:02Avi's, you know, august supervision, but
40:05still centered on a university? Because
40:07look at the university system right now.
40:09Look at the Ivy League, Cornell,
40:12Harvard, too,
40:13you know, where I went, Brown. Many
40:15different, you know, and I'm and you
40:17know, people in the chat are saying, you
40:18know, can't trust Gary, he's at
40:20Stanford.
40:21They they had their president had to
40:22resign because of
40:24because
40:25Yeah, they're saying things like that.
40:26Well, I mean, if you want something done
40:28right, you know, do you want to ask a
40:30team of academics, you know, professors
40:32and functionaries and
40:33>> still I still respect the academy. I
40:36mean, you know, a lot of the politics
40:38and that kind of stuff is problematic.
40:40Cancel culture, DEI, and all that stuff.
40:41This too shall pass. I do think that
40:43universities for centuries have been,
40:46you know, kind of the center of the
40:48generation of knowledge and and we will
40:50continue doing that. I do think having
40:52uh this council associated with Avi,
40:55organized by Avi, led by Avi at Harvard
40:57makes a difference. You know, that opens
41:00doors. You know, there you know,
41:01representative Luna like I went to
41:03Harvard. Wow. Okay, she's not coming to
41:05to buy office.
41:06>> She She visited Harvard. She didn't go
41:07to Harvard. Yeah.
41:08>> Harvard, right? Yeah, I mean, she
41:10visited her She's not coming to visit
41:11me, right? I mean, that opens doors.
41:13Okay, so if that's what it takes, if
41:15somebody says, I I don't care about
41:16Schumer, but I want to show Avi I'm
41:18going to Harvard to show him the aliens.
41:19Okay, whatever it takes.
41:22>> Yeah. I should say that the Michael,
41:24there is another aspect aside from
41:26religiosity.
41:28And that is looking for a partner. You
41:30know, before my wife met me, she was
41:33asking her father, is there anyone out
41:35there
41:36for me?
41:37And
41:38you know, are we alone is the most
41:40romantic question in science.
41:42>> That's true, yes. That's a nice point,
41:44yeah.
41:45>> Michael, now you have to leave. Avi, are
41:46you able to stick around for a little
41:47longer? Thanks, Michael.
41:49>> All right, I'll see you guys later. All
41:51right, bye-bye.
41:53>> So Avi, it's great to talk to you. We
41:54have a million questions for you, but
41:56we'll do it rapid fire. But I do want to
41:58talk about the the rise of AI. I do
42:00think it is the superintelligence
42:02phenomenon cannot be avoided. I think we
42:05do need to discuss that, especially in
42:06the context of what you're doing. But
42:08but also scientifically for what we're
42:10both doing and what our teams and
42:11researchers are doing and what our young
42:13people out there that are working in my
42:15lab and in your in your group have to
42:17confront. We've seen a lot of things
42:19going on lately with Open AI, Naval
42:22Ravikant. We haven't you and I haven't
42:23talked since then, so I think it would
42:24be fun to talk about that. Let's take a
42:26couple questions from my audience.
42:28I usually take questions only from the
42:30members that that join the channel, so
42:32please join the channel. If you're not
42:34subscribing, please subscribe.
42:37And I guess the the first thing Yeah, is
42:40is actually, you know, related to this.
42:42So why would aliens, if they have, you
42:44know, the access to interstellar
42:47transportation, why would they care
42:49about our DNA? Not just have our the
42:51same five base pairs that we have in RNA
42:54and DNA. Why would they care about our
42:56biology?
42:58>> Yeah, so
43:00the question of the intent is the most
43:02difficult for us to figure out. And you
43:05can think of it in terms of levels of
43:08intelligence. If they are operating in a
43:10different plane than we are, we will
43:11never be able to figure out their
43:13intent. Just think about a dog that
43:17where the owner
43:19didn't feed the dog because they had to
43:21get some stamps from the post office.
43:24How would you ever be able to explain to
43:26a dog why stamps are needed? You know,
43:29that's a completely different level of
43:31understanding of reality. And so when
43:33the
43:34owner of the dog is absent, the dog has
43:37no way of figuring out that the post
43:40office gives stamps and that these are
43:44useful for some something that the owner
43:46is doing. So
43:48in the same way, if the aliens are
43:50operating at a different intelligence
43:52level, or if AI systems that we develop
43:55will reach a level that we cannot
43:57comprehend because of recursive
44:00self-improvement,
44:01you know, we won't be able to figure out
44:04the intent. We will see things happening
44:07and in fact the AI systems might try to
44:10fool us like putting a some makeup as if
44:13you know a veneer that lets us feel
44:15comfortable with whatever they're doing
44:17but behind that veneer will hide a
44:20reality that is not understandable to us
44:23because it's far more sophisticated. I
44:24mean we are
44:26you know cheering whenever you know open
44:28AI solves
44:30an old mathematical problem because we
44:32can understand the fact that we didn't
44:34we weren't able the mathematicians were
44:35not able for so long and now a
44:38collection of thousands of agents can do
44:40it but just think about
44:43a goal that has nothing to do with
44:45problems that humans posed in the past
44:47has nothing to do with the millennium
44:49problems that humans came up with it has
44:51to do with problems that the AI system
44:53came up with because of recursive
44:55self-improvement they decided to pursue
44:58some goals that are not framed by humans
45:01and then they're giving us this
45:03appearance as if they're cooperating
45:05with us but in fact they're solving
45:07something else and you know that is the
45:10most difficult situation to be in
45:13because you have no way of figuring out
45:15the intent and I think in the case of
45:17you know neighbors that are visiting us
45:19cosmic neighbors if they reached our
45:22backyard before we reach their backyard
45:25their science and technology is probably
45:26far more advanced than ours
45:29by maybe thousands of years at the very
45:31least and in that case you know they
45:34represent our future there is no way we
45:36can figure out our future now that AI
45:39systems are growing exponentially.
45:41>> So there's a question about quantum
45:43physics that we don't fully understand
45:45quantum physics so if we could
45:47understand it we could manipulate it and
45:49that would create new opportunities
45:51virtual reality that listener is saying
45:53and that would be a tantamount to UAPs.
45:55I call this line of thinking the UAPs of
45:58the aliens of the gaps you know we they
46:00can do everything that we can't do and
46:01they fill in the things that we can't do
46:02just like God did before we understood
46:05the scientific process as we do now. And
46:07of course there's always residual things
46:08we don't understand. What do you make of
46:10this that that you know they they the
46:11reason that we don't that they can get
46:13here is because they know physics that
46:14we don't know. I mean it's sort of a
46:16very circular argument.
46:17>> not thinking about physics but I do
46:19realize that our technological
46:22civilization is now on the brink of a
46:24new phase which is driven by AI and
46:27eventually by self reproducing robots
46:31with AI. Why is that significant?
46:34Because in the past if you think about
46:36SETI, the search for extraterrestrial
46:38intelligence, when we developed radio
46:41communication it was in order for us to
46:43communicate with each other as animals,
46:45biological entities. They wished
46:48especially humans wished to communicate
46:50with each other. That created a sense of
46:52community. We developed a radio
46:54communication because of the fact that
46:56we are made of
46:57you know biological bodies. But when you
47:00deal with AI they don't have the same
47:02objective. They will not necessarily
47:04radio communicate with each other.
47:06And so SETI you know
47:10will not work when you deal with
47:13technological civilizations that went
47:15beyond the AI singularity that we are
47:18entering. And in I call it SETI
47:21actually. I wrote three papers on three
47:25articles on that
47:26on medium.com. And
47:29the search for extraterrestrial AI and
47:33one difference just to give an example
47:35is that if you deal with biological
47:37creatures that let's say life as we know
47:39it in liquid water what you need is to
47:42be in the habitable zone of a star at
47:44the right distance where liquid water
47:46may exist on the surface of a rocky
47:48planet that has an atmosphere. However,
47:50if you deal with self-replicating robots
47:53that use AI they would prefer to be
47:56closer to the host star. There will be a
47:58technological zone, which is different
48:01than the habitable zone, which is closer
48:03to the star in order for them to get
48:05more flux, more energy per unit time,
48:08per unit area from the host star so that
48:11they can power their data centers, their
48:14technological infrastructure. For the
48:16technological zone of stars would be far
48:19closer in to the star than the habitable
48:23zone. And SETI, you know, in difference
48:26from SETI, should also consider planets
48:29that are very close either planets or
48:32space platforms that are artificially
48:34made that are closer to the host star
48:36because they can power data centers,
48:38technological infrastructure. It's a
48:40different search.
48:42And one other signature of AI-driven
48:46civilizations is that they would use
48:48probes, self-replicating robots. They
48:51will send them around. They They will
48:52not necessarily transmit radio signals
48:54because their objectives are perhaps
48:56reaching those exoplanets and
48:59transforming them according to some
49:02plan.
49:03>> So, one thing that Tom DeLonge told me
49:05many years ago when I talked to him, and
49:07I have to disagree. There's a lot of
49:09people in the chat that are saying you
49:10are a rock star, Avi. You just maybe you
49:12have a bad voice. But I'm not one to
49:14talk. The only instrument I play is
49:16Spotify.
49:17Uh question from Poland. Um have you
49:20looked into the possibility of an
49:21ancient advanced extinct ancient human
49:24civilization on Earth before us, and
49:26that's what these things are?
49:28>> Well, first I should say humanity is
49:30probably, you know, if we are being
49:32visited, this visit was not recent. It
49:35has been around. Humanity, you know,
49:38hominins started 5 million years ago,
49:40which is a tenth of a percent of the age
49:43of the Earth. And Homo sapiens started
49:45300,000 years ago. That's 0.007%
49:50of the age of the Earth. You know, it's
49:52really a short time. And if we have a
49:55visitation, probably lasted for a while.
49:57And so we might not be the indigenous
50:00intelligent
50:02species
50:03on earth. We are not necessarily the
50:06indigenous species. If we find
50:10And they're curious. Maybe they were
50:11responsible for some of our evolution.
50:14You know,
50:15I haven't seen any evidence for that in
50:18the human DNA. There is no part of human
50:20DNA that is definitely put put there
50:23artificially that is a complete
50:25completely different. You can see that
50:27it is a patch. As far as I know, there
50:29is no such thing.
50:31Uh and so it's not clear whether they
50:33uh you know, as we evolved from
50:35chimpanzees, whether they had any role
50:37in helping our intelligence to blossom.
50:40Uh
50:41we don't see any evidence for that, but
50:42who knows?
50:44Uh the point is there could have been
50:46also an intelligent
50:48civilization before us on earth. Let's
50:51say 200 million years ago. And you know,
50:55since then there were lots of
50:56catastrophes, you know, on earth. Maybe
50:59one of them was triggered by the
51:01civilization that basically destroyed
51:03itself. Uh the point is all of their
51:05computer terminals or whatever they left
51:07infrastructure
51:09was probably mixed with the earth's
51:12interior through geological activity. So
51:16200 million years later, we don't see
51:17much of it except for things that are
51:20hovering in the atmosphere. You know,
51:22these are if they are able to survive
51:25for that long, they would not be
51:27destroyed by geological activity. So
51:29maybe UAP represent uh
51:32a technological civilization that
51:33predated us on earth. That's a
51:36possibility.
51:38>> An allied question I have um
51:41uh gave to
51:42uh Professor Kevin Knuth, who's also on
51:44your council, I believe. And uh we're
51:47talking about these different objects
51:48that were seen, you know, if you take
51:50the all the sensor data including the
51:52two refracting telescopes in our heads.
51:54Uh and you include that as a visual
51:56reference and then you look all the way
51:58down to the radio. You know, that's
52:00spanning orders of magnitude in
52:02wavelength range, you know, four, five,
52:03six orders of magnitude, maybe seven to
52:0510. It's hard to get much more broad
52:08than that. I mean, there are very few
52:09detectors that can do gamma ray all the
52:11way down to, you know, radio waves,
52:13right? So, but but we have a lot of
52:14these things. Um and I said to him, you
52:16you looked at these objects and they
52:18they travel with, you know, 5,000 G
52:20accelerations and so forth. They don't
52:22make sonic booms. They don't make um uh
52:25supersonic shock waves. So, I asked him,
52:27let's pose it as a sca- a physics
52:29question. I'm a I'm an expert in radar
52:31technology. I mean, that's part of what
52:33the CMB was, right? Cosmic microwave
52:35background. I build these detectors. I
52:36build infrared cameras. I build optical
52:38cameras.
52:39Uh all across the wavelength range of
52:41That's as high up as I go is optical,
52:43but but nevertheless,
52:44and I look at all the different domains.
52:46Polarization, uh frequency coverage. I'm
52:49looking for Lorentz invariant
52:50violations. So, all these things. And I
52:52said, what are the what types of
52:53properties would have a perfect
52:56reflectivity and absorption in the
52:57optical, infrared, radar, uh microwave,
53:00um maybe up until the ultraviolet and
53:03produce and be made of no material uh
53:06such that they would not heat up,
53:07produce sonic boom, would not produce
53:08sonic booms, would go underwater, would
53:10be buoyant. What kind of just as a
53:13hypothesis likelihood ratio? What kind
53:15of materials could these be? It it
53:17seemed to make me I mean, he didn't have
53:19a good answer for it, I don't think.
53:20What is your, you know, retort to that?
53:22These things do not interact, but they
53:24do interact.
53:25>> I can give you one example uh
53:28of something that can do that.
53:30Uh in the question assumes that there is
53:33a solid surface, but there might not be.
53:35So, you know, in 1994,
53:38uh
53:38Miguel Alcubierre, a
53:41Mexican physicist, came up with a
53:43solution to Einstein's equations where
53:46he derived sort of a soliton, basically
53:50warped structure of space-time where
53:52space-time is curved. It looks like a
53:54bubble. And this warped space-time
53:58bubble, you know, warped bubble is able
54:01to
54:02travel at an arbitrary speed. And it
54:04doesn't need an engine. It's traveling
54:07because it keeps warping space ahead of
54:10it and that sort of keeps it going. Uh
54:13and
54:14uh
54:16for, you know, since 1994, people wrote
54:18papers about it and uh
54:20uh you know, it can move even faster
54:22than the speed of light in principle or
54:25smaller, much smaller than the speed of
54:27light. Uh and I just asked the question
54:31a few months ago,
54:32what will be the appearance of such a
54:36thing if it were to go through the
54:38Earth's atmosphere? That's a simple
54:39question. Nobody asked this question and
54:41I
54:42convinced the
54:44researcher named Dr. Sean Fell,
54:48uh who has expertise in general
54:49relativity and is brilliant, to do a
54:52simulation of that. And what we found is
54:54that and it's all on the archive. You
54:56can find the paper. Uh we calculated the
54:59radiative appearance of a warp drive, a
55:02warp bubble passing through the Earth's
55:03atmosphere. We found that if it moves
55:05close to the speed of light or or more,
55:07it will be brighter than the sun. You
55:09know, it would be so bright that you
55:11won't be able to miss it. Uh we don't
55:13see such things. However, if it
55:17if it moves at the speed of sound, which
55:19is a million times
55:21smaller than the speed of light, it's
55:23exactly a million times. The speed of
55:25sound is a million times smaller than
55:26the speed of light. Then you could get
55:29the appearance of an orb, not very far
55:32from what is reported by the US
55:34government. So perhaps, you know, you
55:36can imagine in this case a warp bubble
55:40moving through air, it doesn't have a
55:42solid surface, it's just that the air
55:44goes through it and shocks as a result
55:48of that because streams of the air
55:50collide with each other, but it doesn't
55:52bother the the the warp bubble because
55:56it has no solid surface, it just moves.
55:58The coupling of the bubble to the air
56:00passing through it is
56:02just gravitational, you know, it's
56:04nothing. Uh so, um
56:06so, in a way, you could get the
56:08appearance of a
56:10ball of plasma, you know, the the the
56:12air that passes through it gets ionized,
56:14gets sort of like a small fireball or an
56:17orb, and it will reflect radar, it will
56:20appear
56:22in infrared imaging or or visible light
56:24imaging, but it's not associated with
56:26the hard surface. So, that's This is
56:29just an example from a paper that
56:31we posted about a month ago, and you can
56:34find all the details there.
56:35>> Yeah, we'll put links to it. Uh Steven
56:37Daedalus, a long-time member of the
56:39channel. Uh do you think that we could
56:41find evidence of alien life or alien
56:43civilization once we have a base on the
56:45moon?
56:47>> Well, the moon is a a museum in the
56:50sense that it has no atmosphere, so
56:53everything that collides with it,
56:55you know, reaches the surface and stays
56:58deposited on the surface. That's why the
57:00moon is scarred with so many craters
57:02that overlap because everything impacts
57:05the moon. On Earth, on the other hand,
57:07you know, all the objects smaller than
57:09the size of a person,
57:11they burn up in the
57:13in the Earth's atmosphere, and
57:15if they are very small, let's say tens
57:18of centimeters, they
57:20get evaporated vaporized
57:23in this process, and so,
57:25we are not vulnerable to
57:27micrometeorites. These are tiny, you you
57:32meteorites,
57:33tiny rocks or dust particles that
57:35collide with Earth at a speed of tens of
57:38kilometers per second. These these
57:40collisions happen all the time, but
57:42these dust particles burn up. However,
57:45if you were an astronaut on the moon,
57:46you have to worry about these because
57:48they move 10 times faster than a bullet.
57:51And if any of them impacts your body,
57:55you are dead.
57:56And so,
57:58gladly, I did a calculation. The chance
58:01of that happening is quite small even
58:03over a period of a decade cuz the body
58:04has a small surface area. But in
58:07infrastructure that will be placed on
58:09the moon, you know, that is part of the
58:11Artemis mission,
58:13that infrastructure will be damaged,
58:15you know, as a result of micrometeorites
58:17because they're not being shielded by an
58:19atmosphere. So, the moon collects
58:22everything impacting it. And in a way,
58:24that's a a treasure of everything over
58:27the past 4.5 billion years. that
58:30collided with the moon should be buried
58:32under the dust on By the way, the moon
58:34is
58:35covered with a layer of dust because of
58:37all these impacts. And these dust
58:39particles are very sharp because there
58:41was no water or atmosphere to sort of
58:47ablate the sharp edges. So, they are
58:49just like fiberglass, you know, if if
58:52you were touch them with a bare hand,
58:54you would be cut immediately. So, the
58:55moon is covered with a meter deep layer
58:58of dust. Under that dust, it's an
59:00archaeological site that we can find a
59:03lot of treasures.
59:04>> I'm giving a talk tomorrow at the
59:06Science of Consciousness
59:08conference here in beautiful San Diego
59:10organized by Stuart Hameroff and other
59:12people.
59:13And I'm talking about the What What is
59:15the possibility that we find dinosaur
59:18fossil on the moon or on Mars, you know,
59:21because it should to me, and I've
59:23written a brief paper about this, which
59:24I'll send you, but you'll probably be
59:26too busy to read it. Uh, but it provides
59:28a slight Bayesian, you know, prior on
59:31the ability for panspermia to take
59:33place. So, my argument is that we have
59:35uh exchanged material between the Earth
59:37and Mars, just like I have a Martian
59:39meteorite. Here's a Martian meteorite.
59:41Uh, and we And by the way, you can get a
59:43Martian meteorite uh if you have enough
59:45money. Uh, but you can get a real
59:47meteorite from uh the Campo del Cielo
59:50impact crater. I don't have my little
59:52guy. Where is he? Uh, if you have a .edu
59:55email address. Well, it looks like this,
59:56but it's much smaller. It's not a giant
59:58piece of silicon. Here it is. You'll get
59:59one of these beauties uh if you have a
1:00:01.edu email address and live in the USA
1:00:03like me and Avi do. Go to
1:00:04briankeating.com/edu.
1:00:06Otherwise, you'll enter into a drawing
1:00:07to win one. But, uh my argument is that,
1:00:09you know, when Mars was wet and warm and
1:00:11wonderful, wild, and slippery, and and
1:00:13and phenomenal back, you know, billions
1:00:15of years ago perhaps, Earth had microbes
1:00:18crawling all over it, and then
1:00:19eventually multi-celled, and then
1:00:20eventually, you know, organisms and
1:00:22entities and animals. And so, we were
1:00:24being bombarded, and there's some
1:00:25probability, it might be extremely
1:00:27small. I calculate the probability in
1:00:28the paper in the talk tomorrow.
1:00:30But, that we would have exchanged
1:00:32material with Mars that would have had
1:00:33living material on it when Mars was wet
1:00:35and wonderful. And so, why couldn't it
1:00:37have life? The fact that, you know, we
1:00:39don't see yet evidence for it doesn't
1:00:41prove that it never happened, but it
1:00:43gives us some limits. And I And I want
1:00:44to start doing that in a quantitative
1:00:46way. So, I started publishing some
1:00:47papers in astrobiology that you'll make
1:00:49fun of in and AI even. Uh, but but uh
1:00:53it's been a lot of fun for me. It's
1:00:54been, you know,
1:00:55a a boon to have these AI minds helping
1:00:57us. But, uh I guess one question that I
1:00:59raised to you last time that we spoke
1:01:01was, you know, why don't you have a
1:01:02budget? And And I feel like uh this is
1:01:04being raised by placebo six in the chat,
1:01:07and he's wondering, why uh can you do
1:01:09anything? Why do you think you can do
1:01:10anything without a without security
1:01:12clearance A? Avi doesn't have one. He's
1:01:14not uh contracted to the government, so
1:01:16no clearance. Uh, that is still true as
1:01:19far as I know. And I don't think you
1:01:20have an official, at least government
1:01:22budget, yet. You may be getting this
1:01:23wonderful X prize, but tell me, Avi, how
1:01:25do you answer his question?
1:01:27>> Yeah, so on the security clearance
1:01:30aspect,
1:01:32and by the way, your idea about the
1:01:34biological material from Mars landing on
1:01:36Earth is excellent, and I think
1:01:39it's good to do the calculation, because
1:01:41the question is how much what's the
1:01:43chance of some of it reaching the Earth,
1:01:45and would we be able to to recover it
1:01:47and distinguish it from life forms that
1:01:49exist on Earth? That's that's beautiful.
1:01:52But with respect to the clearance,
1:01:54the point is that with the new directive
1:01:56from President Trump, anything to do
1:01:59with alien intelligence, with alien
1:02:03technology, with things that were not
1:02:06manufactured by humans here on Earth,
1:02:09anything to do with that
1:02:11is declassified immediately.
1:02:14In meaning that this is information that
1:02:16should be shared with people without
1:02:18clearance, according to President Trump.
1:02:20Okay? So, the government is not allowed
1:02:24to keep it classified. And if there are
1:02:26any whistleblowers, any
1:02:29people who served in government, either
1:02:32in the past or right now, that know
1:02:35about such things, they are obligated,
1:02:38they are being asked, it's their duty,
1:02:41it's their order right now to reveal
1:02:43anything they know about it. So that it
1:02:47can be declassified. The only reason
1:02:49that a lot of data is not declassified
1:02:53is because it has
1:02:55connection to national security. Either
1:02:58the data
1:03:00you know, would reveal the kind of
1:03:01sensors that the US employs, or there is
1:03:05a strong suspicion that we are dealing
1:03:07not with alien technology, but with
1:03:10technologies from adversarial nations,
1:03:11from black projects, whatever. And so,
1:03:15what I'm trying to say is that what the
1:03:17council cares about is not the kind of
1:03:20technologies that Russia or China are
1:03:23developing. We don't care about that.
1:03:25That can stay classified.
1:03:28What we care about is any non-human made
1:03:31technologies. That is not allowed in the
1:03:35current situation within government.
1:03:36That is not allowed
1:03:38to stay classified. And therefore, it
1:03:41should be brought to the attention of
1:03:43scientists. Now, if it so happens that
1:03:46the sensors used to collect that
1:03:48information are classified and the
1:03:50government cannot really reveal it, what
1:03:52they can do is really simple. Uh
1:03:54we are aiming to partner with them so
1:03:57they can just say, "Go to that location.
1:04:00Use your off-the-shelf sensors that are
1:04:03not classified and look at the sky."
1:04:05They can just say that. "Look in that
1:04:07direction."
1:04:09And if indeed these visitations are
1:04:13recurring, as is the case because we
1:04:15keep hearing about them, you know, and
1:04:17some of the reports in the tranches of
1:04:20data are very recent, from last year,
1:04:23from this year. So, these things are
1:04:25recurring. So then, the only thing
1:04:27government needs to do is not reveal the
1:04:29sources. They just need to tell me or
1:04:32the council, "Use your sensors in that
1:04:35location and look up." And we will do
1:04:39that and we will have data that can be
1:04:41shared with the public this way. So, the
1:04:44question of, you know, what what kind of
1:04:48clearance I have is irrelevant for that
1:04:50because we are not interested in
1:04:52human-made
1:04:53technologies.
1:04:55>> So, another question is about other
1:04:58near-Earth objects. And I had a long
1:05:00conversation this summer with Beatrice
1:05:01Villarroel. Uh she's actually speaking
1:05:04remotely at this conference tomorrow, I
1:05:05believe. Uh unfortunately, I won't get
1:05:07to meet her. But, um
1:05:09what have you decided Have you updated
1:05:11any of your um you know, critiques and
1:05:14and or priors on Beatrice's work and
1:05:16these near-Earth objects that she claims
1:05:19have been orbiting Earth since
1:05:20potentially, you know, 1947 you know,
1:05:23before Sputnik essentially.
1:05:25These are ancient objects almost 180
1:05:27years old. Um how you know, how
1:05:30skeptical do you remain? Cuz you were
1:05:32quite skeptical as as I think we should
1:05:34be
1:05:35uh and she's quite confident. In fact,
1:05:37she's recently had a a couple papers
1:05:38published you know, in peer-review
1:05:40journals that seem to substantiate the
1:05:42hypotheses that she claimed earlier.
1:05:44>> Yeah, I didn't look closely enough to
1:05:47study all the details. Um and it's quite
1:05:51possible that there were objects in the
1:05:53sky that uh
1:05:55are representing alien technology back
1:05:57in the you know, 80 years ago. Uh
1:06:00there was a study by Westwater's led by
1:06:04Westwater's that was published and
1:06:06criticizes the work. So, anyone that
1:06:09wants to see criticism can go there and
1:06:11ask uh Professor Westwater's at
1:06:13Wellesley College. It's not my work and
1:06:16it's not for me to decide who is correct
1:06:20between the two sides. But, my approach
1:06:22in general is if
1:06:25if we want to find out more about such
1:06:28things, we need to collect better data
1:06:31that will be conclusive beyond any
1:06:33reasonable doubt because we have uh the
1:06:36instruments that we developed, we
1:06:37calibrated, we know what they are doing
1:06:40and multiple groups can do the same
1:06:42thing. That's the issue of being able to
1:06:44reproduce the results. And
1:06:47that we can do for the future. So, I
1:06:50would
1:06:51move to the side of
1:06:53indeed we do have evidence only if we
1:06:57collect higher quality data that will be
1:06:59beyond any reasonable doubt and a lot of
1:07:01people within the scientific community
1:07:04will agree that this is indeed the
1:07:06situation. So, the way to resolve it is
1:07:10by collecting new data with new sensors.
1:07:12That requires work. It's not just
1:07:14sitting on the bench and cheering on
1:07:18social media when you think you see
1:07:20something that you you like. This is not
1:07:22the You know, we are not in the
1:07:24entertainment business. A lot of people
1:07:26on social media think that we are in the
1:07:28entertainment business. Oh, someone
1:07:30gives me some red meat that I enjoy,
1:07:33just like Steven Spielberg, you know, or
1:07:35or Beatrice, if they like what she says,
1:07:38they would they cheer up and and and
1:07:40like what she says and and be happy
1:07:41about No, we are not in the
1:07:43entertainment business. We're in the
1:07:44business of figuring out the reality.
1:07:46>> Would you advise Would you advise David
1:07:48Grusch I mean, David Grusch
1:07:50apparently, according to the Hollywood
1:07:51Reporter last time I think I spoke with
1:07:54you, you know, he's being hired as a
1:07:55consultant on a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.
1:07:57Do you think that that's going to Would
1:07:59you advise him to do that?
1:08:02>> Uh you mean Jerry or or or
1:08:04>> No, David Grusch. Do you think that
1:08:05improves the credibility of a of a, you
1:08:07know, whistleblower and and
1:08:09brave brave man?
1:08:11>> Yeah. No, Hollywood is all about getting
1:08:14the attention of an audience, which is
1:08:16similar to social media. It It You know,
1:08:18it serves no scientific purpose. And the
1:08:21only way we can learn something new
1:08:23about the reality that we live in is
1:08:25through the scientific process of
1:08:27collecting data by instruments,
1:08:29analyzing that data, and then when
1:08:32everyone can see it, then everyone
1:08:34agrees that's really the case. And that
1:08:36is the way a detective works. It's a
1:08:38like a detective story. So, it's really
1:08:40misguided to think that by
1:08:42appealing to the audience the way
1:08:44Hollywood script writers do, you know,
1:08:48you would gain some credibility. That
1:08:51that's completely misguided. The way to
1:08:53gain credibility is to show us the
1:08:56evidence. Okay? So, when David Grusch
1:08:58says about, you know, the dozens of
1:09:00spacecraft that are held in
1:09:02corporations.
1:09:04He doesn't need to collaborate with
1:09:05Jerry Bruckheimer. I saw Jerry
1:09:06Bruckheimer a year ago and the point is
1:09:10he needs to have a guided tour to one of
1:09:13these sites where just one spacecraft
1:09:17is is located and it doesn't mean mean
1:09:20that he needs to bring me there or the
1:09:22council. He just needs to bring
1:09:23President Trump and everything will be
1:09:25over. Everyone will agree with him and
1:09:27then he can make the millions or
1:09:29billions of dollars
1:09:30because he was the one to show this
1:09:32spacecraft, okay, or to lead to that
1:09:34location. That is the key. The key is
1:09:37the evidence. People are missing the
1:09:38point.
1:09:39Now, of course, if you are a believer,
1:09:41you think you already know the answer in
1:09:42advance,
1:09:44you might
1:09:45be quite happy about the current
1:09:47situation already, but I'm saying that's
1:09:49not the way science is done. That's not
1:09:51the way by which we gain objective new
1:09:54knowledge and
1:09:56you know, just look at the history.
1:09:58There were lots of people believing in
1:10:00something that turned out to be wrong
1:10:01for many, many decades or centuries
1:10:04and the only way to figure it out is
1:10:05eventually through the scientific
1:10:07process.
1:10:08And I know that science doesn't have a
1:10:10great reputation right now. It's
1:10:12considered to be the occupation of the
1:10:14elite, but this subject is a great way
1:10:18to demonstrate the value of science
1:10:21because we can then convince everyone
1:10:25through the scientific method that we
1:10:27are dealing with an alien visitation if
1:10:29it's real. And the public cares about
1:10:31this question, so here is a golden
1:10:33opportunity for us to engage the public
1:10:36in the scientific process, tell the
1:10:39public that we don't know when we don't
1:10:41have evidence and we do know when we
1:10:43have evidence, not tell Jerry
1:10:46Bruckheimer what we think we know
1:10:48without showing the evidence. That's not
1:10:50the way to make progress. So, to me,
1:10:53it's important as an educational uh
1:10:56uh way of of
1:10:57telling the public how science is
1:10:59valuable. And by the way, I think that
1:11:02science is not appreciated also by not
1:11:05just by members of the public, but also
1:11:07by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs,
1:11:08billionaires, who think that by
1:11:11you know, if you have the tree of
1:11:13knowledge, you know, the the biblical
1:11:15tree of knowledge, um uh uh
1:11:17they can harvest the fruits of the tree
1:11:20like AI, uh quantum computers, and make
1:11:25trillions of dollars out of those
1:11:26fruits. And all they need is to water
1:11:29the branches of the tree to get more
1:11:31fruits in the future. They're making a
1:11:34a great mistake, a huge mistake
1:11:36strategically, because the only way that
1:11:38the tree of knowledge will give them new
1:11:40fruits is by watering the roots of the
1:11:43tree. The roots of the tree is
1:11:45fundamental science. And the the
1:11:47fundamental science is not being funded
1:11:50at the same level as all these
1:11:52trillion-dollar technologies, the data
1:11:54centers. And what I'm just saying is
1:11:58I'm not asking them to apologize for the
1:12:00fact that a hundred years ago the people
1:12:02who discovered quantum mechanics
1:12:04received salaries that are a million
1:12:06times smaller than their income. I'm not
1:12:08saying, "Okay, you you ripped the fruits
1:12:11of the tree without rewarding the people
1:12:13who actually allowed you by discovering
1:12:15quantum mechanics to do this." I'm not
1:12:18I'm just saying, "Appreciate the
1:12:20intellectual value of those pioneers who
1:12:23were paid very little. Gave you the
1:12:25information that you're using now to get
1:12:28trillions of dollars out of the economy.
1:12:30And fund additional work on the
1:12:34foundations of science rather than on
1:12:36how to use AI and the quantum computers
1:12:40to make more money."
1:12:42>> Speaking of something as we wrap up
1:12:44that's taken a lot of money and didn't
1:12:47provide a lot of return on the
1:12:49investment until maybe just last month
1:12:51is the search for dark matter. And dark
1:12:54matter was recently claimed very not not
1:12:57claimed to be detected, but Rick
1:12:58Gateskill, a spokesperson for the LZ
1:13:00collaboration down there at Brown, my
1:13:02alma mater, go go Bears.
1:13:05He claimed weak evidence for some
1:13:08anomalous hint of a new particle. First
1:13:10of all, we haven't talked since then.
1:13:12What was your initial take on this?
1:13:13You've done a tremendous amount of I
1:13:14mean, there's no there's no branch of
1:13:16astronomy, cosmology, physics, if
1:13:18fundamental philosophy that you haven't
1:13:20contributed to. And and aliens are just
1:13:22the tip of the iceberg, and I should say
1:13:24that you can find out a lot more about
1:13:25Avi from his medium, which we'll link,
1:13:27and his YouTube channel, which there's
1:13:28only about one official Avi Loeb YouTube
1:13:31channel. Anyway, Avi, tell me, what did
1:13:33you make of that detection? Cuz I'm
1:13:34going to bring it back to the search for
1:13:35aliens, too.
1:13:36>> On I should say most of my career was
1:13:39dedicated to other things, you know,
1:13:40like
1:13:41just today I taught a class in the
1:13:43morning, and I was teaching the hydrogen
1:13:46atom in quantum mechanics and mentioning
1:13:48the 21 cm transition, and I said, you
1:13:51know, two decades ago I worked full-time
1:13:54on 21 cm cosmology, and I wrote
1:13:57textbooks about it, and
1:13:59you know, it's one of those things that
1:14:01I I was completely immersed in. So,
1:14:03people who see me just over the recent
1:14:05years get a very false impression about
1:14:08what I worked on or know, and so forth.
1:14:11Um but
1:14:13to your question,
1:14:14so um
1:14:17Uh
1:14:17I was very excited about the the
1:14:20discovery, but it's one event, and of
1:14:22course it has uh
1:14:24statistical significance because we
1:14:26wouldn't expect this event from
1:14:28background. So, the key is that the
1:14:30background events that we can imagine
1:14:32would never produce this
1:14:35the properties of this event, the
1:14:36characteristics of this event. So,
1:14:39of course what it means is that in the
1:14:41future, you know, with bigger bigger
1:14:43detector, and also with a time to
1:14:47collect additional events, we should be
1:14:49able to figure out whether it was a
1:14:50fluke of some random event that we
1:14:53cannot understand but is background or
1:14:55it's a signal. And if it's a signal and
1:14:58we will know hopefully within the coming
1:15:00decade, indeed it's a major discovery
1:15:03because we are talking about 84% of the
1:15:06matter content of the universe. You
1:15:08know, that's a major and and
1:15:11we you know, knowing what it is would
1:15:14open up a new
1:15:16frontiers for fundamental physics which
1:15:18over the past 50 years, you know,
1:15:20theoretical physics was
1:15:22engaged with extra dimensions, with
1:15:24supersymmetry, things that were not
1:15:26demonstrated experimentally. It's a bit
1:15:29disappointing, you know, that to see
1:15:31that decline in the traditional sense of
1:15:33fundamental physics being driven by
1:15:35discoveries,
1:15:37uh experimental discoveries. So, let's
1:15:39hope that there is something there and
1:15:41if not, we'll continue the search. We're
1:15:43searching in the dark. And I should say,
1:15:45you know, we invested billions of
1:15:46dollars in the search for dark matter so
1:15:48far.
1:15:49Uh
1:15:50and we maybe a thousand times less in
1:15:53the search for technological probes near
1:15:56Earth that may have arrived from another
1:15:59civilization. So, I would say let's
1:16:00invest also billions of dollars in the
1:16:02search for technological gadgets of
1:16:05alien technology.
1:16:06Uh and if we don't find anything, we'll
1:16:08be roughly at the same situation as we
1:16:10are with dark matter search.
1:16:11>> Well, good luck with the X Prize. Good
1:16:13luck with the research that you do. I
1:16:15want to thank you, Michael Shermer. I'll
1:16:16link to your YouTube channel, your
1:16:18Medium articles. Avi, this has been
1:16:19great. Thank you so much, my friend.
1:16:21>> Thanks for having me.

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