Disclosure Forum 2026: “Humanity at the Edge of Discovery” — Kennedy Caucus Room (Disclosure Foundation, 25 Jun 2026)

Source: The Disclosure Foundation’s first annual Disclosure Forum, Kennedy Caucus Room, US Capitol, Washington DC — a full-day event (7h23m). URL: https://youtu.be/3004GwnxwzM (uploaded 2026-06-25; 7:23:15). Captured: 2026-06-29 via Antigravity CLI (agy, model “Gemini 3.5 Flash (High)”) on 600s video chunks (320px / 1fps), 2 chunks transcribed in parallel; timestamps continuous across chunks. Machine multi-speaker transcript with on-screen [Visual, …] cues. CAVEAT — speaker attribution is machine-generated (agy names speakers from on-screen appearance + recognition) and is unreliable; treat every label as a guess to verify against the video before quoting. The SPEECH text itself is verbatim. Proper nouns / acronyms may be mis-rendered. Timeline gaps (~3:03-3:54, ~4:42, ~5:20) are the lunch and afternoon breaks (no speech), not missing content. Correction applied (2026-06-29): agy invented a “Karl Nell” attribution — he was NOT a forum speaker (verified against the official agenda at forum.disclosure.org, which lists Mellon’s opening address and the full speaker roster with no Karl Nell). agy misidentified two different people as him. The opening keynote it labeled “Karl Nell” (0:00-9:59) is Christopher Mellon’s and has been relabeled Mellon — confirmed three ways: the official agenda gives Mellon the Opening Address, the content is distinctly Mellon’s (he cites releasing his own conversation with a senior official about a recovery program), and his keynote sentence continues across the chunk boundary into “[Christopher Mellon, 10:00]” where agy labeled the same voice correctly (the next speaker then says “Thank you so much, Chris”). Three lines near 2:51 that agy labeled “Karl Nell” are relabeled “Unidentified panelist” — a Security & Defense panel member (Kirk McConnell, Tim Gallaudet, or Marik von Rennenkampff), not Nell. The two remaining in-text “Karl Nell” mentions (von Rennenkampff at 1:39:40, Malmgren at 6:55:33) are genuine references by speakers and are kept. Other speaker labels across the 7 hours have not been individually verified and may carry similar errors. What this is: the full-day forum referenced throughout the 2026 disclosure cycle — the same event Coulthart reported from (coulthart-realitycheck-disclosure-lawmakers-2026-06-26) and discussed across his Reality Check Q&As. Speakers include Christopher Mellon (opening keynote), UAP-caucus lawmakers (Anna Paulina Luna; Disclosure Award honorees André Carson, Tim Burchett, Eric Burlison), Luis Elizondo, Avi Loeb (Galileo Project), Hal Puthoff, Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, Stephen Bassett, and science/policy panelists (Carlos Eire, Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, Pippa Malmgren, Mike Gold, Marik von Rennenkampff, et al.). Analysis: uap-disclosure-schism and elizondo-career-and-claims.

Disclosure Forum 2026: Humanity at the Edge of Discovery - Kennedy Caucus Room (Disclosure Foundation, 2026-06-25)

Source file: disclosure_forum_2026.mp4. Duration: 7:23:15. Transcribed: 2026-06-29 via Antigravity CLI (agy, model “Gemini 3.5 Flash (High)”) on 600s video chunks (320px/1fps); timestamps continuous across chunks. Speech + speaker labels + on-screen visuals are machine-generated from the video; proper nouns and names may be mis-rendered — verify specific citations against the source.

[Visual, 0:00] Christopher Mellon stands at a podium in a marble-walled room speaking to an audience. [Christopher Mellon, 0:00] …is. [Christopher Mellon, 0:01] And today, experts that rarely occupy the same room—physicists, historians, economists, intelligence professionals, educators, journalists, and policymakers—are gathered here in this room to discuss a subject that was, until very recently, untouchable. [Christopher Mellon, 0:22] So, we’ve made astonishing progress in recent years, but we believe decisive UAP data remains hidden behind a wall of classification at the Air Force, CIA, DOE, and elsewhere. [Christopher Mellon, 0:35] The Disclosure Foundation is vigorously seeking further breakthroughs in transparency—breakthroughs that we hope can resolve vital unanswered questions, especially concerning evidence of a non-human intelligence. [Christopher Mellon, 0:48] Is Pentagon video and radar evidence limited to extreme performance attributes, or does the government also possess recovered off-world technology? [Christopher Mellon, 0:58] Indeed, I referred several reputable witnesses who made such claims regarding recovered materials to the government office charged with investigating UAP. [Christopher Mellon, 1:09] I also released the text of a conversation I had with a senior US official describing what he claimed to have learned about a UAP recovery program. [Christopher Mellon, 1:18] Other whistleblowers have gone to the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General or Congress. However, denials regarding proof of non-human intelligence continue. [Christopher Mellon, 1:29] We know UAP satellite data exists because former Representative Ratcliffe, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has acknowledged this, although none of that data has been released. There has been no data released regarding UAP in space, notwithstanding rigorous UAP space surveillance—or, rigorous US space surveillance. [Christopher Mellon, 1:51] Similarly, we have not seen any UAP data revealed by our most powerful and advanced aerospace radar network, nor has data of submerged UAP been released. [Christopher Mellon, 2:02] Yet, despite these huge gaps in data, the volume and credibility of UAP continues to grow. Hundreds of new military sightings are occurring every year and being forwarded to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and other intelligence organizations, such as the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, for analysis. [Christopher Mellon, 2:23] Yet, that analysis is usually omitted from UAP files that are released. Regrettably, without more precise data involving things like distances and acceleration, it is hard to draw many firm conclusions from UAP performance characteristics, which, all too conveniently, makes it impossible to demonstrate that these cases involve capabilities that surpass anything made by man. [Christopher Mellon, 2:50] We’re eager to assist government officials seeking to identify and close vital information gaps. Our sense of urgency stems from what we already know. [Christopher Mellon, 3:01] For example, in December 2023, UAP violated the airspace above Langley Air Force Base for more than two weeks. [Christopher Mellon, 3:11] The intrusions were so serious that an entire squadron of F-22s was relocated, and to this day, as far as I am aware, the Air Force still does not know the origin or capability of these craft. [Christopher Mellon, 3:26] Since then, incursions of a similar nature struck Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. [Christopher Mellon, 3:32] This fall, extraordinary intrusions involving fiery orbs—orbs that appeared to be intelligently controlled—were detected at one of our most sensitive and important military test ranges. [Christopher Mellon, 3:45] Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said publicly, after receiving the highest-level classified briefings, that the Pentagon remains, in his words, quote, “mystified.” [Christopher Mellon, 3:59] This disruptive pattern has been repeated at US bases at home and abroad, as well as Navy ships at sea, ranging from US military facilities in Guam, all the way across the Pacific and North America, to Europe and the Middle East. [Christopher Mellon, 4:15] The facts are undeniable. Something gravely serious is occurring in our airspace, and in many cases, our government does not understand the origin, capability, or intentions of these intruders. [Christopher Mellon, 4:28] The sooner we learn the truth, the better. The better our chances for preparing for whatever comes next. [Christopher Mellon, 4:35] That may be transformational, because if it turns out, as I believe the evidence increasingly suggests it will, that some of these craft are of non-human origin, the implications are not merely scientific. [Christopher Mellon, 4:49] They ripple outward from national security into economics, into religion and philosophy, into the deepest questions of human identity. [Christopher Mellon, 4:59] We must urgently learn the truth for a number of reasons. [Christopher Mellon, 5:03] First, democracy requires transparency. The American people have a right to know the truth of such a fundamentally important issue. [Christopher Mellon, 5:11] The alternative is the modern equivalent of suppressing Copernicus or Darwin. [Christopher Mellon, 5:16] Concealing the truth undermines faith in government, and that faith is already fragile enough. [Christopher Mellon, 5:22] Second, we own any discovery. If exotic materials were recovered, then they belong to the American people, as their recovery was funded by our tax dollars. [Christopher Mellon, 5:33] Third, we can handle the truth. [Christopher Mellon, 5:36] A poll recently conducted by the Disclosure Foundation shows that 89% of Republicans and a similar number of Democrats want greater transparency around UAP—a clear bipartisan call for the truth. 70% believe UAP are a real phenomenon. [Christopher Mellon, 5:56] Our ancestors endured profound disruptions to their understanding of the world via, for example, Copernicus and Darwin. [Christopher Mellon, 6:05] A Disclosure Foundation research paper recently published by Dr. Janice Vilhauer and other eminent psychologists found that while certain high-risk populations may experience ontological shock, most people will, in fact, handle the truth. [Christopher Mellon, 6:21] The principal public health concern is system strain, not mass panic. [Christopher Mellon, 6:28] Fourth, secrecy stifles science. If we’ve recovered off-world technologies, our best and brightest minds should be working on them now. [Christopher Mellon, 6:37] Breakthroughs in propulsion, energy, and material science could be within reach. [Christopher Mellon, 6:43] Even if there are no recovered materials, confirming the existence of non-human craft would still prove transformational, far more so, for example, than the Sputnik program that shocked the nation and eventually led to our landing on the moon. [Visual, 6:53] Wide shot of the hall showing the audience, Christopher Mellon at the podium, and a slide titled “Opening Remarks Christopher Mellon”. [Christopher Mellon, 6:59] Fifth, disclosure is likely inevitable. [Christopher Mellon, 7:02] Commercial satellite imagery is becoming ubiquitous. The Galileo Project at Harvard, led by Dr. Avi Loeb, who will be speaking later today, is one of several civilian organizations deploying dedicated UAP sensor networks. [Christopher Mellon, 7:17] Organizations around the world, and foreign governments from Japan to France, are mounting increasingly sophisticated UAP collection campaigns. [Christopher Mellon, 7:27] The next mass US UAP sighting over a major city like Washington may be captured on hundreds of cameras and powerful civilian radars. [Christopher Mellon, 7:37] Better to have disclosure on our terms than to be overtaken by events. [Christopher Mellon, 7:43] Finally, disclosure could transform international relations for the better. [Christopher Mellon, 7:47] Ronald Reagan, speaking before the UN General Assembly in 1987, said something that has stayed with me. [Visual, 7:49] Close-up of Christopher Mellon speaking at the podium. [Christopher Mellon, 7:55] Quote, “In our obsession with the antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” [Christopher Mellon, 8:19] Reagan was imagining a perceived threat. What I’m imagining is something somewhat distinct—not a threat as much as a revelation and an opportunity. [Christopher Mellon, 8:29] If disclosure comes, and I believe eventually it will, then, as former President Reagan suggested, it will force humanity to see itself differently. [Christopher Mellon, 8:39] Not primarily as Americans and Russians, or Chinese and Christians—or, Christians and Muslims, or atheists and conservatives, or other members of competing tribes—but as one people traveling together aboard a small planet sailing through an incomprehensibly vast ocean of space. [Christopher Mellon, 8:59] With disclosure, many of the divisions that consume us today will begin to look very small. [Christopher Mellon, 9:05] This is crucial to our long-term survival, because the most dangerous challenges we face—including weapons of mass destruction, pandemics, artificial intelligence, bioterrorism, and global warming—each require new and unprecedented levels of international cooperation. [Christopher Mellon, 9:25] Disclosure is the only thing I can think of big enough to bring about the change of perspective required of the leading nations of this world. [Christopher Mellon, 9:34] I suspect that someday we’ll look back on this period as the closing chapter of one era and the beginning of another. [Christopher Mellon, 9:41] An era in which humanity first began to understand that it is part of a larger reality. [Christopher Mellon, 9:47] All of us at the Disclosure Foundation believe it is wiser to prepare for the future than conceal it. [Christopher Mellon, 9:53] So, we need to continue asking the difficult questions and following the evidence wherever it leads. [Christopher Mellon, 9:59] That is… [Visual, 10:00] A man in a suit stands at a podium in front of a marble wall. [Christopher Mellon, 10:00] the spirit with which we approach this symposium. Not with fear or denial, but with curiosity and integrity. At the same time, our ignorance regarding alien life leaves room for fearful thoughts as well, admittedly. As the engineer and author Andrew Cole wrote, space is a sea without end which washes on countless strange and exotic shores, where the conceivable forms of the living and the dead are greatly outnumbered by the inconceivable, where the known is lost in the unknown, and where new dangers hide in undiscovered shadows in unimagined forms. Fear of the unknown has always been with us. Only the truth can dispel those fears. Thank you and welcome to the first annual Disclosure Forum. [Visual, 10:48] “Disclosure Foundation” logo appears in the top-right corner. [Visual, 10:52] Camera cuts to a wide shot of the room as the audience applauds and another man walks to the podium. [Speaker 2, 11:07] Thank you so much, Chris. So before our, our next panel here, which is the congressional roundtable on UAP transparency, um, I would like to first discuss that today, the Disclosure Foundation is proud to honor four members of Congress who have dared to ask questions that others wouldn’t. Representatives Anna Paulina Luna, Tim Burchett, Eric Burlison, and André Carson have been relentless in their commitment to UAP transparency, pushing for access to classified programs, holding hearings that brought credible witnesses before the public record, and refusing to accept stonewalling as an answer. Their work has moved the needle in Washington in ways that few thought possible just a few years ago. They’ve taken seriously what too many of their colleagues have dismissed, and in doing so they’ve given a voice to a demand that millions of Americans have been making for decades: full disclosure and no more secrets kept from the people who deserve the truth. The Disclosure Award exists to recognize those who have worked tirelessly in the service of this effort. So please, join me in welcoming Representatives Luna, Burchett, Burlison, and and Carson. [Visual, 12:35] The audience stands and applauds as Representative Eric Burlison and others walk to the stage. [Eric Burlison, 13:03] Thank you. Thank you. [Eric Burlison, 13:04] I feel like I’m winning an Oscar. [Speaker 2, 13:05] It’s better than an Oscar. [Eric Burlison, 13:08] No, the, honestly, we’re not the brave ones. The brave ones are the men who have come forward in our hearings. [Visual, 13:12] Camera cuts to a close-up of Representative Eric Burlison speaking at the podium. [Eric Burlison, 13:14] People like Sean Ryan, um, Jeff Nuccetelli, we’ve had, yeah, you can, woo! [Eric Burlison, 13:24] Um, you know, Matthew Brown, David Grusch, um, Lou Elizondo, uh, you know, yes. [Eric Burlison, 13:39] Um, Chief uh Wiggins, and um, Dylan Borland, I I’m sure I’m forgetting someone. But these are the brave people that have come forward. And we’re, uh, you know, I uh, I’m just somebody who’s just trying to do my job, to honor what they’ve done, the brave work that these men have have done, and they’ve and they’ve made these sacrifices. Their lives are not as rosy as they could be, if they’d stayed quiet. So we all owe it to them, and the and and everybody else that’s thinking about coming forward. The first thing that we need to do, and this is the this is what I’m pressing on this administration. The first thing you need to do is you need to make it right to these brave people who who have come forward and speak and spoke the truth. [Visual, 14:30] Camera cuts back to a wide shot of the room as the audience applauds. [Eric Burlison, 14:33] And so, I mean, I don’t, this has been quite a journey for me. Um, I I the the good part of the journey is I get to meet some amazing people. Um, in this uh, there’s within the UAP um community, there’s there’s factions, there’s different personalities, but I consider you all my family in a way. And so, um, some of the brightest, smartest people in the world. And so, uh, it’s an honor. I I will, I will proudly display this in my office, and the fight continues. And so, thank you. Thank you very much. [Visual, 15:07] Eric Burlison walks away from the podium and the camera cuts to a wide shot. [Speaker 2, 15:10] If you guys want to have a seat here, and we can just, uh, inform them of, uh, [Speaker 2, 15:15] So, as you, uh, as as you might see, several of those people who I mentioned are not here right now. So we are subject to some of the, uh, scheduling, uh, challenges, uh, and and busy schedules, uh, that that the Congress people have. Um, so while we are, I believe, uh, uh, Representative Carson will be here at 9:30, um, and certainly he will, he’s welcome to come to the front when he arrives. Um, but I think, in the meantime, perhaps what we can do, uh, Representative Burlison, is, you know, a part of this, uh, a part of this conversation, a part of this panel, is meant to engage with the media, for them to be able to ask questions, and for us to have a little bit of an inter- an interaction, during this time. So, if uh, there’s a few people from the Disclosure Foundation who can grab these mics, um, we’d be happy to take questions from the members of the media, uh, that are here, that are reporting on this topic. We are really blessed to be able to have, um, sort of an embarrassment of riches of media coverage, uh, today for this topic. Um, representatives from, uh, The Atlantic, from Time Magazine, from CBS, from the New York Times, uh, from Vice. The list goes on and on, um, and I know I’m, I’m leaving, leaving some people out there. Um, forgive my memory. So, why don’t we, uh, members of the media, um, again, [Speaker 2, 16:46] Oh, and Representative Subramanyam, you’re here. Please, come, welcome to the stage. [Visual, 16:51] Representative Subramanyam walks onto the stage and is welcomed by Speaker 2. Camera cuts back to a wide shot showing Anna Paulina Luna also walking onto the stage. [Speaker 2, 16:54] And Representative Anna Paulina Luna, welcome to the stage. [Speaker 2, 17:07] No worries. No worries. No need to apologize. [Visual, 17:11] Camera cuts to a close-up of Representative Eric Burlison, Representative Subramanyam, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna sitting at a table with their awards. [Anna Paulina Luna, 17:11] I think it works. [Speaker 2, 17:13] And Representative Subramanyam is here as well. Um, so, I’m happy if you guys would like to make quick remarks, uh, happy to do that. Uh, this is really your time, and then if you’d like to engage with questions, uh, from the media for the rest of this time slot, that’s also great. We have until about 10:00 a.m. here, so this is really for you guys, and these are your awards. Uh, we, uh, announced the Disclosure Award, um, so these are yours. Um, [Speaker 2, 17:50] So, I’m just going to open it right up, um, and I again, I think Representative Carson is going to be here, uh, at 9:30, but, uh, but please, uh, go ahead. [Anna Paulina Luna, 18:01] Burlison, do you want to start, do you want to like, kind of, end the code with questions? [Eric Burlison, 18:05] Well, I already did say some, so [Anna Paulina Luna, 18:07] Here you go. [Eric Burlison, 18:08] I already did kind of, give a little bit, but I did miss Ryan Graves, and Rear Admiral Gallaudet, and I, and if I missed somebody else I really apologize. But, thank you. I again, I my, my stress is that we’re just doing our role, um, the brave people are the ones that have come forward to testify. Thank you. [Anna Paulina Luna, 18:28] Um, well, first of all, I just want to say thank you to everyone who is here. Whether it’s Dr. Avi Loeb, the scientist, our whistleblowers, and then also to the members on this panel. So, to kind of provide some context and background, when we first started these investigations, people, I’m sure as people have probably called you, you know, they they thought we were crazy. They said that, you know, this was made up, it wasn’t true. We were also told that this was, you know, a disinformation campaign. Some people thought that we were trying to, you know, release stuff to distract from what’s really happening in Washington. Uh, but the reality is is that, you know, ultimately we believe that if this information does exist, which it does, it belongs to the American people to decide, and really the world to decide and see what information is out there pertaining to the question of are we alone in this universe. And so, I could not have done this as the task force chair without these members, as well as Tim Burchett, Burlison, um, Jared Moskowitz, all the other members who put their name, their credibility, their elections on the line on this topic. And because of your help, because of everyone who’s really come together, and this is really a community effort, um, we now have some of the most historic disclosure, I think, in US history. [Visual, 20:00] Representative Anna Paulina Luna speaking at a press conference panel next to Representative Suhas Subramanyam [Anna Paulina Luna, 20:00] …unity and help spearhead the effort, hopefully setting the standard for members of Congress and for, you know, elected officials to come. Your turn. [Suhas Subramanyam, 20:15] Yes. [Anna Paulina Luna, 20:16] I think your mic’s working. [Visual, 20:18] Representative Suhas Subramanyam adjusts his microphone [Suhas Subramanyam, 20:22] Hi, yeah, I’m Representative Suhas Subramanyam. I represent Virginia. I’m new to Congress, so I’m new to this topic and every other topic really. But, uh, I was interested in this because as a non-congressman, I was very interested in why, uh, the, uh, some federal agencies thought that they knew better than the people, that the people weren’t ready for full disclosure, that we, uh, you know, we needed to hide things from the people. And so, given the work that was done before me by you all and by the folks, other members on this stage, you know, I’m coming into a much better situation than you came into, with a lot less stigma, a lot more, uh, willingness to disclose. And so, I look forward to joining the work and continuing the work that started and trying to make sure that we make real progress on these issues. So thanks for having me. [Visual, 21:08] A man in a grey suit and sunglasses walks in front of the camera [Visual, 21:10] Audience applauds [Visual, 21:17] Camera cuts to the moderator speaking at a Senate-branded podium [Speaker 1, 21:18] I’ve got a quick question if there’s no other immediate questions from the media right now. So, the Disclosure Foundation commissioned a poll recently, and the results of that poll, I think Chris Mellon mentioned in his speech, 89% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats want transparency with respect to the UAP topic. What is your reaction to that? What do you see on Congress in terms of this being a bicameral, bipartisan issue, and how can we use the tools of Congress to effectuate transparency and disclosure? [Visual, 22:01] Camera cuts back to Representative Anna Paulina Luna at the panel [Anna Paulina Luna, 22:01] Um, I mean, we didn’t have to see polling to know that. We saw, just by the amount of people and support for our hearings, that this is an overwhelmingly important issue to many people. And also, don’t forget the independents. They’re out there too. But specifically on this topic, as I’m sure you can imagine, things get polarized, and this is the one thing where we can go in and we can all say, ‘You know, we don’t like the fact that these different agencies are telling us that we know for a fact these documents exist and they’re saying that they can’t locate them or whatever it might be.’ I will say, and had it not been for, I think, President Trump doing what he did, forcing these agencies to divulge information, we would have still been stonewalled. In fact, I think Representative Burlison, when we initially sent out that letter requesting, you know, the 20 to 40 plus documents, um… [Visual, 22:50] Representative Anna Paulina Luna continues speaking but the audio goes silent [Visual, 23:10] Camera cuts to a wide shot of the press conference room [Speaker 1, 23:18] Anybody else like to respond to that? Or I can move on if not. [Visual, 23:22] Camera cuts to the panel as Representative Suhas Subramanyam speaks without audio [Visual, 23:54] Camera cuts to the moderator at the podium [Speaker 1, 23:55] Absolutely. And we are delighted that you’re here and that Representative Carson can still hopefully attend, but I know, I know things change and that’s, that, that’s DC, right? Um, there is… I’m often asked, ‘What’s different now? What’s different about this time period?’ And for disclosure, I usually reference, I don’t think ever before have we had this amount of presidential will behind getting to the truth. Can you comment on what you have seen from the executive branch, what you are able to tell the public now about the cutting edge and latest developments on that front? We have all of these entities now. We have AARO, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. We have, at the DNI, we have the DIG, the Director’s Initiative Group. We have the Pursue program. Historically, we’ve had the UAP Task Force and AOIMSG. Can you describe what is different about this moment with all of these entities? [Eric Burlison, 25:07] I think what’s different is, again, I go back to the people that came forward. You have highly credible individuals who have made their way, you know, through the ranks, and they’re giving up so much to come forward, and you can’t help but admire these, these men. And when you hear them talk, you, you, you sense the genuineness and the honesty in what they’re saying. And so, I think that bravery is what has caused this, this, um, you know, the snowball. And then, and then, I think you had this magic moment where we had, um, you know, members of Congress who were willing to spend the time and the effort to do it, and then you had on top of that a president who has an attitude that is very much an outsider attitude. I mean, he’s, he, he came in with a distrust of government. I think the fact that they went after him for so much means he has no interest in making, you know, the deep state happy at all. And so… [Visual, 25:11] Camera cuts to Representative Eric Burlison speaking at the panel [Anna Paulina Luna, 26:09] (Laughter) [Eric Burlison, 26:10] And so, I think that that combination is one that has, has, is this perfect moment, if you will, for disclosure. And so, and we have seen so much success recently. When President Trump came in, I think that he quickly moved on the JFK files, on disclosure of the MKUltra, and, and then, etc. And we kept asking, Anna and I and Tim kept, anytime we would have that little moment with the president, you know, or his people, kept prodding and asking, ‘When are you going to do the same thing for the UAP files?’ And I think that it wasn’t until we had that series of, of, hearings, and then when, then, just everything that kind of fell into place when Barack Obama made his statement, I think that that all kind of created this momentum that we’re all being able to experience. And now what we’re seeing is an administration who is, I mean, they are absolutely hellbent to get the information out. That was obviously kind of the low-hanging fruit, and the easy things to, to release at the beginning. I think as we get into this more and more, we’re going to, it’s going to be more difficult because you’re, you’re now, to get to the answers… We were talking about this last night, that as administrations have come in and left, they don’t always transfer that knowledge to the next political people, appointees. And so, as a result, you, I think we have a lot of lost information in the same way that we forgot how to go to the moon, or for a period of decades we forgot how to build nuclear reactors. I think the same thing happened with this topic. You have, um, you know, as, as new administrations would come in, the people that might have a little bit of knowledge about this, they kind of quietly buried it or never really shared that. And so now it’s like we’re rediscovering… It feels like the administration is rediscovering and digging into archives and documents and, and everything they possibly can to get at the truth. And so, we’re at that stage. It’s now going to be a little bit more, it’s going to be quite a bit more difficult, and it’s only going to get more difficult. But I think we have an administration that is hellbent to make it happen. [Anna Paulina Luna, 28:24] (Laughter) [Anna Paulina Luna, 28:26] Yeah, if um, I can just add on to that, too. I want to give a quick thank you to Christopher Mellon over here… [Visual, 28:31] Representative Anna Paulina Luna claps and points to Christopher Mellon in the audience [Visual, 28:34] Audience applauds as camera cuts to a wide shot of the room [Visual, 28:40] Camera cuts back to Representative Anna Paulina Luna speaking [Anna Paulina Luna, 28:40] …specifically pertaining to everything, um, you did with helping us locate some of these documents because, you know, when we gathered our list together, kind of our wish list if we could ideally have everything we wanted out and declassified, um, we brought that list and they said, ‘Where did you get this list?’ And we said, ‘We have friends, too.’ And so, you would be one of our friends. I just, you know, what we do is we can push, we can pull. You know, DC kind of operates on two things: pain and pressure. So those are our levers that we get to pull; sometimes we do both. And on this topic specifically, it has become so enormous with the interest that now you even have people that even a year ago I was getting teased about it, okay? They were like, ‘Luna, you know, you’re on Joe Rogan. This sounds a little crazy.’ I said, ‘Who’s sounding crazy now, buddy?’ So, um, all that, thank you. Yeah, all that to say that, you know, this is a really big team effort. The one thing specifically, people say, ‘We want to know where locations of craft and biologics are,’ right? So, um, we know for a fact that there have been a few very credible whistleblowers that we’ve talked to that allege that they have information specifically pertaining to this, but they are afraid of losing their clearances. So, we have talked directly to the White House. Stephen Miller is absolutely incredible on this topic. And we are providing them with a list of people that will be given immunity if… [Visual, 30:00] Representative Anna Paulina Luna sitting at a panel table under a “Disclosure Foundation” logo. [Anna Paulina Luna, 30:00] and that they will not have to face retribution in the future for violation of their security clearance or in some cases maybe the espionage act whatever it might be. And that will be them going to the White House divulging what information they have. And we’re following up on it. I’m not saying that I have personally seen stuff, I haven’t. Um, but what I am saying is that we are taking the information that we have received, we are handing it off, we are going to get them immunity and protections so that they can divulge that information, and let’s see where it leads. [Host, 30:27] Thank you so much. And I want to point out, uh, the, uh, modesty of this man. So, Representative Carson, please join us on the stage. Uh, you, uh, we have a seat for you right here. This man has been a leader in this topic, and the level of leadership and modesty, he was sitting in the back like patiently waiting. [Visual, 30:28] Wide shot showing the panel of three members sitting at the table. [Visual, 30:32] View of the host at the podium speaking to the panel and audience. [Visual, 30:46] Wide shot of the room as Andre Carson walks up to the stage. [Visual, 30:52] Andre Carson shakes hands with the host and panel members. [Host, 31:15] So, uh, so, Representative Subramaniam, uh, needed to depart. Um, but, Representative Carson, welcome, and thank you so much. We’ve had several meetings with you and your team. You’re a true leader, uh, on this topic. One, another question that I wanted to ask of, of the group is, you know, what, this sort of gets, uh, uh, um, to the issues that we just discussed, but what asks do you have, uh, for the President? And how can organizations like ours, and, uh, members of Congress and the tools available to you, how can we try to effectuate those asks? [Visual, 31:17] Close-up of the host speaking at the podium. [Visual, 31:58] Close-up of Representative Tim Burchett speaking at the panel. [Tim Burchett, 31:58] I want to see, you know, the, everything made right to the people that have come forward and made sacrifices and have lost their pension or their, their medical benefits, you know, etc. I, I think that it, first and foremost, you got to make it right to those people. That will demonstrate to everybody else who wants to come forward, that, that it’s a safe place to come into. And then I think what, what Anna is leading on is fantastic in that making sure that the administration knows that, there’s, they, there may be some times where these individuals who work, you know, they were promoted into a system or a program, sometimes, they’re now inheriting things where the, where they realize, well, there’s crimes involved in this. And so, I, you know, if you wanted, it’s, they’re kind of put in an awkward situation. Do they do their patriotic duty? How, what, what do they, what do they do? I think that, providing some level of amnesty for them to be able to come forward, is, is very, very important. And then, um, and then I finally think also that they, they need to waive, the non-disclosure agreements, for on this topic. Particularly, just waive it completely for anything related to the knowledge of life, that’s outside, you know, non-human intelligence. If you, I mean, I don’t see why we possibly should even allow that to be a top secret thing. And so, if there’s anything that’s related to that, it should be waived. I think that, that, that’s what our ask is of this administration, as well as to continue digging into the private sector. I think that a lot of this information is, is in the, in the hands of either the, the archives of these federally funded research and development centers, and then further, some of the, some of the prime subs that, that have been working on this topic. And so I think that it’s going to take, making it clear that to our major companies that we do business with, or do business with the United States, that it’s okay to come forward, and I think that we’re going to have to have a discussion if they do have, if they’re reverse engineering stuff that they got because it was from non-human intelligence. We need to make sure that we can have that conversation about intellectual property, etc. So, that, those are the next steps. [Visual, 34:14] Close-up of Representative Andre Carson speaking at the panel. [Andre Carson, 34:16] Yeah, I, I actually commend the administration, President Trump, though I’ve been very critical of him politically, uh, privately we got along very well, but, I, I, I think it’s important to note that the President has been bold in this regard. Uh, and I want to thank my colleagues Tim and Anna. When I, when I, when I first took this on as, uh, as a, as a chair of the subcommittee, uh, Adam Schiff was the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and I approached Adam Schiff, now Senator Schiff, about this idea. And to Adam’s credit, he was, he was a good chair, he was very supportive. Um, there was a lot of rumblings, uh, about why, uh, I wanted to have this hearing. And obviously it’s a very sensitive topic. And someone said, “Well, why would you take this on when you have enough on you? You’re Black from Indiana, you’re Muslim, and now you’re talking about UAPs.” Yeah, that’s true. That is true. That is true. That is true. That is true. That is true. And, and, and, and so, um, my, my interest began as, as, as a child. Time Life, I’m dating myself, they had a series on Mysteries of the Unknown. And, at the, at the time I was 16, and I ordered the first book, which was free, and, I didn’t get a subscription, but the first book that came was a book about UFOs. And so, that started my interest, uh, even though I’m a Star Wars fanatic and a, and a bit of a Trekkie, um, I still wanted answers, and so, I, I was a police officer, I worked for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security and Counterintelligence and, and Counterterrorism, and, um, when I got to Congress, sitting on the Intelligence Committee, it was an opportunity, so I spoke to Adam Schiff, and I said, “I would love for you, since you’ve been supportive about me having this open hearing, and obviously there are some security concerns, I would love for you to, to attend.” Adam attended and he told me, he said, “Andre, a lot of folks on the Senate side are so upset and jealous because they wanted to do this, but they were fearful that they’d be attacked.” Um, a couple of folks in the administration now, give them a shout-out. But, so when we had that hearing, the attendance wasn’t as robust as it, as it is in this room. But it did spark something. They were like, “Well, Andre, you’re the, you’re the godfather of modern, uh, UAP hearings.” Well, you know, I’m just, I’m just someone who is supportive and I’m supportive of whistleblower protections, and I’m supportive of making sure that folks who want to come forward have the opportunity to come forward without hindering promotional opportunities or anything of the sort. So, we appreciate many of the civilian organizations, many of the filmmakers, the Disclosure Foundation, the Disclosure Foundation, we appreciate you dearly, because this is so critically important. And I want to thank Anna and my colleagues for being so bold. This is not just a bipartisan issue, this is an American issue. And this is a very serious issue. Now, the balance is that while my colleagues have had open hearings and I love it and I support them, I think on the Intelligence Committee and in the open hearings, we always have to be very mindful because our adversaries are constantly watching and listening for context clues to see what we’re working on and what we’re developing. So, there’s the balance there, but there’s also the mystery there, where our Five Eyes partners and other folks in the IC have to work together to provide comfort to the global community about what’s really taking place while protecting our national security. It’s a balancing act, but it must be done, but we support you and know that you have firepower in Congress as we work with the administration to protect the folks who speak out and to see what else is out there. So, thank you. [Visual, 38:12] Wide shot of the room as the host speaks at the podium. [Host, 38:14] Thank you so much. And apologies that we’re having the, uh, like you were saying, the suspicious, uh, uh, audio-visual issues. I’m sure that seems to, uh, travel with this topic. Um, so, you know, it sounds like what you’re saying is that there is, there is this question, can we, uh, can we have transparency? Can we tell the truth to the American public with, while simultaneously preserving our national security and avoiding strategic surprise? And while there may be, uh, problems to solve there, it sounds like, you know, the answer, uh, from this panel to the American public is a resounding yes. Would you concur with that? [Anna Paulina Luna, 38:58] Yeah. [Host, 38:59] Yeah, I think that’s a really powerful statement to hear in this room, the same room that, uh, that held the Iran-Contra hearings, that held the Watergate hearings, uh, a room, a storied room that is, uh, dedicated to transparency and disclosure. Um, so, another question for you is what other, what other tools exist? Uh, uh, subpoenas have been discussed. Uh, our organization has discussed, uh, the potentiality for, a National Intelligence Estimate, which is, I think, not controversial. Would you comment on, uh, some of these other tools that may exist from a policy perspective? There is the, um, uh, there is the UAP Disclosure Act, there’s other potential legislation in the works. Would you, would you comment on that for us? [Anna Paulina Luna, 39:48] Um, I, I will just say that, all of these members have at some point backed and been vocal advocates for the UAP Disclosure Act, whistleblower protections, FAA reportings, but the problem is [Visual, 40:00] Representative Eric Burlison stands at the podium as Representative Anna Paulina Luna speaks. [Anna Paulina Luna, 40:00] is that staff and or various members in leadership then [Visual, 40:11] Close-up of Representative Anna Paulina Luna speaking at the panel table. [Anna Paulina Luna, 40:18] gather and backchannel the information that people are able to lead us so that we can then go public with it or go to the administration, because we had great partners at ODNI with, uh, Avril, now DNI, Avril’s very good as well, but specifically to the allies that we have within the administration. The secretaries for the most part are all playing ball with us, and we actually have great correspondence, but it’s not the secretaries that are the issue. As you know, the federal government is a massive, massive group of people. And so, if someone isn’t on the same page that we are on this topic, they’re going to stonewall, they’re going to try to wait us out, and that’s exactly why we kind of have to work together on this to be able to get those items. And then I’ll just end with saying this, you know, at our last hearing with Representative Burlison releasing the footage of a Hellfire missile being deflected by one of these things, you know, I don’t ever tell people what they can and can’t do in a hearing, I actually applaud him for putting that forward. And I remember, um, someone had said, “Well, you know that that was, you know, potentially classified.” I said, “Well, you know, it’d be great if you guys responded back to us, because when you don’t respond, this is, right, as an elected, duly elected representative of Congress to provide transparency. And also deflect Hellfire missile, I can’t. So, um, there’s that.” [Visual, 41:48] Close-up of Representative Tim Burchett speaking at the table. [Tim Burchett, 41:48] Yeah, see, we’re trying, thank you, we’re trying to get the UAP Disclosure Act put on the National Defense Authorization Act, which is for supposedly next week’s time, or the next coming weeks, assuming that, yeah, I mean, it’s… [Anna Paulina Luna, 42:03] If we’re open. [Tim Burchett, 42:04] But, again, we are facing difficulties. And I mean, it’s so frustrating because it’s not members. I, I don’t, at least the, if, if it is members, they’re not coming to me and saying, “Hey, I’m not allowing your amendment.” It’s staff. And it’s, and it’s like, who elected you? You were not elected. I mean, and for you to be able to deny, you know, an elected official who, whose job is to answer to the people, and you’re going to deny me the ability to get this amendment, at least even offered, is unacceptable. And so, right now we’re trying to get that made in order so that when it comes to the floor, at least we get an opportunity to have a vote on the UAP Disclosure Act, and then you’ll know who supports it and who doesn’t. Um, but I’ve got to get Intelligence Committee to approve that. And so, um, any help, um, Representative Carson would be greatly appreciated if you can lean on our chairman and others, that would be fantastic. But we’ve got to get it made in order. And if we can get it on the hou- if we can get it out of the House, I think that that’s half, we’re halfway there. And then we’ll, I think we’ve got allies in the Senate, whether it’s Senator Schumer, and I cannot believe that I am sponsoring language that Senator Schumer also is sponsoring. But… [Visual, 43:28] Wide shot of the press conference room with the audience applauding. [Tim Burchett, 43:33] But, you know, what’s right is right, and truth is truth, and, and, um, we, we are all Americans, and that’s why this is such a common-sense thing. And the only thing that’s going to stop it is, is the staffers who are killing things behind the scenes in the cover of darkness. And so, that’s, that’s what we’re facing right now. So your help, getting vocal on this, is, is probably the only way we’re going to get it done. [Visual, 44:01] Close-up of Representative Eric Burlison speaking at the podium. [Eric Burlison, 43:59] Thank you for that. I would like to open it up again to questions from the media. Um, yes, sir. [Visual, 44:10] Media reporter Matt Ford stands to ask a question. [Matt Ford, 44:13] Thanks very much. Uh, gentlemen, uh, great to see you. So, Matt Ford from The Good Trouble Show. Uh, two years ago, the former police chief of Ord, Nebraska, handed me over 60 pages of 911 calls from 2019 and 2020 documenting hundreds of craft, some as large as an SUV, surrounding towns, hovering over public schools, and shining spotlights into uh, ranchers’ homes. Multiple law enforcement officers described close encounters with these craft as close as 50 feet, uh, that were completely silent, one of them exhibiting ex- instantaneous acceleration. Uh, the FBI, the FAA, DHS, and AFOSI were called in to investigate, and disappeared when the swarms did. Uh, this past February, the government shut down all El Paso airspace and blamed cartel drones, but a source with direct knowledge of the incident told me this was a cover story and characterized the incursion into US airspace as extremely alarming, this one particular incident. From Nebraska to El Paso, the official story keeps uh, changing and then disappearing. Congressionally, what can be done to sort of end this cycle of ob- of obfuscation from uh, the DoD, IC, and the National Security Council? [Visual, 45:36] Close-up of Representative André Carson speaking. [André Carson, 45:36] Well, again, I, I, I, I, I have worked for, did exercise did security did work in security. Um, I do think that there’s a balance between protecting our national security and ensuring it is us, and also, to informing the public to making sure it’s not them. Um, and by them, I don’t mean the Russians or China. I mean, somebody who could be otherworldly or interdimensional. And, I think in a very real sense, having more access to these files with the appropriate members of Congress, who, unlike these very brilliant folks, who won’t leverage it for their own and, and, and in effect trivialize and minimize the hard work and passion that has been put in throughout the decades by the Disclosure Foundation, and some of these great filmmakers, all their work, all the content, all the recording, and that has happened, and it’s happening. And so, it does give those in power cover to then trivialize and say, “Oh, these folks, it’s spooky,” um, “if, if this is a tinfoil community.” And now, with the advent of AI, it’s become that much more difficult to distinguish what’s real and what’s not. Um, but in a very real sense, I think having a cooperative relationship with state police, sheriff’s department, local PDs, and the IC, I think, would work a lot better. But also making sure that, if it is military, that it’s not disclosed because, again, context is key. Thank you. [Visual, 47:31] Wide shot of the room as reporter Martin Willis walks up to the microphone. [Martin Willis, 47:38] Hello. Martin Willis from Podcast UFO. Thank you all for being here. Um, question that I have is, uh, when these files have been released, uh, they keep coming out and the people that have been around the UFO community for a long time, all say the same thing, “Where’s the good stuff?” You know, where’s, there’s got to be more than this. And a lot of this is military, I saw the, you know, other releases, this latest one. But, um, a lot of people also have fear of, I heard you, Representative Burlison, mention private entities, you know? There’s been talk about things going like crash retrieval. And I know the Schumer rounds had the eminent domain, um, aspect of it. You know, these things go into these private companies and then they’re gone. We, there’s no oversight, there’s no way to see what’s really happening. And so, I just wondered if you could address those questions. Thank you for your time. [Visual, 48:38] Reporter Martin Willis walks back to his seat as Representative Eric Burlison speaks at the podium. [Eric Burlison, 48:41] Good question. As far as, you know, how do we actually get our teeth into the seeds? So, that’s, that’s been my focus is, you know, you talk like, hearing the reports of, of this, um, hearing the reports of the, um, like what was just mentioned, of other sightings. We’ve had so many sight- you know, of those reports, but where, where is the photos? And I would say, if you’ve got the photos, let’s see them. Bring them forward. If the public, if there was that many people that sighted it, then we want to see the footage. We want to see the, the cell phone footage, right? So, but at the end of the day, when you, when you don’t have it, it’s just narrative. So, that’s where I’m at. I’m like we’ve had, we’ve had a lot of great hearings with some great witnesses. And at this point, I’m as frustrated with you as, as you are. I want to see, I want to see the real stuff. What we’re trying to do, um, in my team, is take actionable information and then, and then request it. And so, right now, I don’t have subpoena power, personally. Um, I got frustrated trying to go through the committee and the length of time that it takes and, and, and again, dealing with staff, um, and, and so I’ve, my team, my office, we’re just sending direct letters, interrogatives, to these, you know, whether it’s… [Visual, 50:00] Wide shot of the Kennedy Caucus Room with a panel of speakers seated at a long table and a host at the podium. [Tim Burchett, 50:00] MIT Lincoln Labs or MITRE, Battelle and others that I don’t want to say yet. We’re sending these letters. We’re sending letters to the FBI saying—and we’re being very specific—we’re saying, ‘You— we want you to investigate the details of the Varginha incident, right?’ [Visual, 50:11] The video changes to a recording device screen showing the “HDMI Out Settings” menu with “Mirror Out” selected. [Visual, 50:27] The video transitions back to the wide live shot of the caucus room. [Tim Burchett, 50:29] And, and then we’re saying, for example, the MIT Lincoln Labs, we are aware that there is a doc— there’s a reel-to-reel audio that’s date— that’s from this date with this name, and— and we demand that you retain that file and that you provide it to Congress. And so when you get that specific, I think that that’s— A, I don’t— I kind of— I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt, I think a lot of these institutions don’t even know what they have. And so, but when, when, when you all, and, and people bring information to us, specific details and information, that helps us craft the letter which then gives the instructions, and, you know, I may be the 435th most powerful member of Congress, but at least, at least I am a member and can write a letter that they might, they might just listen to. And so that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do right now. And I think we’ve made some success, I mean, MIT Lincoln Labs, it did admit that they do have that reel-to-reel. And that led us to, to be able to, to find out that there’s more to that, that, that, uh, MITRE is involved with. So now our letter to MITRE contains more detailed information. So we’re pulling the thread, it’s open, I mean, we’re seeing a softening of the soil, if you will, and we’re just going to keep doing that in order to get the truth. [Visual, 51:02] Close-up of Representative Tim Burchett sitting at the table and speaking. [Jordan Flowers, 51:50] Um, before we get to, get to another question, can you inform the public about what— I think the natural question is, what, what is on that reel-to-reel? Are you able to describe, uh, that, or is that too— too sensitive to, to discuss? [Visual, 51:52] Close-up of Jordan Flowers standing at the podium and speaking. [Tim Burchett, 52:06] No, I can’t. I don’t know that it’s too sensitive. I’ll just give you kind— I haven’t heard it yet, so— they have acknowledged that it exists, and that they’re in the process of getting it to us. But what— my understanding is that it is— it’s of, and I forget the— the— the general’s name, he’s an Air Force General who is briefing MIT scientists about— I believe it’s the event that happened in Washington, D.C. in 1952. So, um, so that’s, uh, so that would be important historical information to have. [Visual, 52:07] Close-up of Representative Tim Burchett sitting at the table and speaking. [Visual, 52:30] Camera zooms out to a wider view of the caucus room showing the podium and the panel table. [Jordan Flowers, 52:37] There’s a lot of people in this room who know what happened in Washington, D.C. in 1952 with, with this subject, um, which is an interesting tie-in to, uh, Beatrice Villarroel’s, uh, work as well. Um, gentlemen, it is— it’s 10:00 a.m. We— we’ve reached our time. I just wanted to ask if you have any other, uh, comments, any other thing, any anything else that you would like to, to say to the audience before we, uh, close out here. [André Carson, 53:05] Keep pushing, keep asking. I think what the administration did, what President Trump did, it very, very mind… and uh, we should see that as a credit to both parties coming together. Don’t stop. We have our power in Congress, let’s go. [Jordan Flowers, 53:20] Roger that. Thank you so much. [Visual, 53:22] Wide view of the room as the audience applauds. [Jordan Flowers, 53:28] And again, we couldn’t do this without you, without the overwhelming, you know, groundswell of, of attention to this. Um, you can tell that the— I mean, the President stepped out in, in, and made that bold move, right? And when, and I think that, what your response, and a billion people visiting the website, has told us all that this is something everybody really cares about. And so, contin— keep it up, keep— don’t let up on the— on the gas pedal. I’m not going to let up on the gas pedal. And, and I’m also, I’m right now, the last conversation I had was, look, I visited one location, I still demand to visit the other locations. And so we’re going to keep doing that, we’re going to— we’re going to go where the evidence is. And so, thank you. [Visual, 54:19] Jordan Flowers shakes hands with the panel members at the table. [Jordan Flowers, 54:38] All right, all right. So, next up, uh, I’ve got, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. So, uh, the, uh, constantly shifting schedules. The— the bad news: unfortunately, um, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will not be able to join us, uh, today. Uh, she was scheduled to give her remarks at 10:00. She had a last minute, uh, schedule change, so our apologies. Um, so, uh, instead, uh, Christopher Mellon, would you come to the stage, please? [Visual, 55:08] Christopher Mellon walks up to the stage and joins Jordan Flowers at the podium. [Jordan Flowers, 55:14] Um, so, since we are going to miss Senator Gillibrand, um, we would like to, I think, now give out another, uh, award that we have. So, uh, before there was a disclosure movement, there were individuals willing to stand alone. Luis Elizondo was one of those people. Lou spent decades serving this country in some of its most sensitive national security roles. He could have walked away from government service quietly, uh, collected no controversy, and lived a very different life. He chose not to. Instead, he stepped forward, with his credentials intact, his documentation in order, and his reputation on the line, and told the American people what they had long suspected was worthy of serious attention. That decision cost him, it brought scrutiny, skepticism, and years of being dismissed by institutions he had served faithfully. He accepted that cost and kept going. That is what courage looks like when it matters most. A person willing to stand behind what they know to be true, regardless of what it takes. Please join me in welcoming our next recipient of the Disclosure Award, Luis Elizondo. [Visual, 55:36] Close-up of Jordan Flowers speaking at the podium with Christopher Mellon standing beside him. [Visual, 56:41] Luis Elizondo walks up to the stage, shakes hands with Jordan Flowers and Christopher Mellon, and receives the Disclosure Award. [Luis Elizondo, 57:06] Folks, forgive me, I’m a little bit short here, so I’m going to see if I can, uh, tiptoe over this podium. First of all, uh, a huge thank you, uh, to the, uh, UAP Disclosure Foundation for putting this on. Um, we’ve come a long way, haven’t we? All of us together, collectively. And, uh, we also have to recognize the brave efforts of the representatives who took time today to engage you on a topic that just 10 years ago I never would have imagined we’d be here today collectively, all of us. But certainly, last but not least, I have to thank each and every one of you, not for this award, and not even necessarily for me being here today, but for you being here. This is democracy in action. Every single one of you, every single one of you, your contributions have allowed us to be where we are today. Your demand for the truth, the fact that you are not willing to compromise, because ultimately, at the end of the day, our democracy depends on truth. Think about that for a moment. Truth and democracy go hand in hand. And what you are witnessing today, in this incredible room, full of history, in my opinion is more history in the making. And again, that’s because of you. That’s because you’re having conversations around the dinner table. You’re having conversations around the office water cooler, and you’re not being dismissive, and you know what? Your government is listening. Politics aside, you have people from both sides of the aisle working diligently on this topic on your behalf because you demanded the truth. So congratulations, folks, here we are. And this award, as, as honored as I am and privileged to, to be recognized—I did not know that was going to happen today, I probably would have, uh, made a convenient excuse to be in the restroom right now— um, but it’s really a reflection of each and every one of you. As I look around the room here, I recognize faces. Faces, some of them newer, some of them I’ve known for a long time. And we’re all here together, witnessing and being part of history. So with that said, I’m going to go ahead and be quiet and, uh, go back to the back of the room here. Because really, this is your day, this is not mine. This is a, a, a direct reflection of you, the American people, and the will of the American people to be heard by our government, and our government willing to listen, and then to go ahead and deliver on those promises that it made so many years before. So with [Visual, 57:09] Close-up of Luis Elizondo speaking at the podium with Christopher Mellon standing in the background. [Visual, 1:00:00] Luis Elizondo speaking at a podium with a “Disclosure Foundation” logo on screen. [Luis Elizondo, 1:00:00] no further ado, to each and every one of you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you continue to do and all that you have done. And really, this is, this is yours. This, this award belongs to each and every one of you. So thank you very much, God bless. [Visual, 1:00:17] Wide shot of the audience in the Kennedy Caucus Room. [Visual, 1:00:20] Stephen Bassett walks up to the podium. [Stephen Bassett, 1:00:36] All right, so we’re going to take a 5-minute break. 5-minute break. Five. Uh, we’re, uh, trying to resolve some AV issues. The next panel, uh, is, is, yeah, we’re livestreaming this, so we’re really hoping that, that the people on the livestream are, are getting the feed notwithstanding the, uh, the AV issues. So, we’re going to figure that out. 5 minutes, and then we are coming back for our, um, panel on national security, uh, which will feature Christopher Mellon, Kirk McConnell, Mark von Renningkampf, Admiral Tim Gallaudet, and moderated by NBC’s Scotty Schwartz. Uh, 5 minutes. Thank you. [Visual, 1:01:19] On-screen text: “THE LIVE STREAM WILL BEGIN SHORTLY” with event details. [Visual, 1:01:30] On-screen text: “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” with a “Sound Check” notice. [Speaker 2, 1:04:14] Mic check one two, mic check, mic check, mic check, mic check one two, mic check, mic check. [Speaker 2, 1:04:20] Mic check. [Speaker 2, 1:04:30] Mic check one two, mic check, mic check, mic check, mic check one two. [Speaker 2, 1:04:38] Mic check one two, mic check, mic check. [Speaker 2, 1:04:44] Mic check one two, mic check, mic check. [Speaker 2, 1:04:49] Mic check one two, mic check. [Speaker 2, 1:04:54] Mic check one two, mic check. [Visual, 1:10:00] Title screen showing “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” [Speaker 1, 1:12:16] Yeah, I was upside down for the picture. [Visual, 1:12:22] Wide view of the hearing room with attendees and a podium in the center [Speaker 1, 1:14:53] Uh, so again, thank you all for- for coming and reconvening. Um, folks in the back corner who are standing and chatting, can you please have a seat? [Speaker 1, 1:15:08] Thank you. [Speaker 1, 1:15:11] Okay. Uh, so our next panel is, uh, Security and Defense: National Security, UAP, and Emerging Threats. On this panel, uh, this panel will be mod- uh, excuse me, moderated by Gadi Schwartz, correspondent from NBC. [Visual, 1:15:25] Gadi Schwartz walks up to the panelist table on the right [Gadi Schwartz, 1:16:33] …probably aware that there was an issue. Over the course of 17 days, if there is something occurring like that over and over and over again, and we have, uh, control of the airspace, and frankly it’s happened in different places throughout the Southwest, it’s happened… so, our ships. What happened night two, night three, night four, based on your information, Chris? [Visual, 1:16:56] Close-up of Gadi Schwartz speaking [Visual, 1:17:22] Close-up of Christopher Mellon speaking [Christopher Mellon, 1:17:22] Surprisingly, uh, when they came to brief the, uh, the Congress, my understanding is they- they said they did not have any video of these objects, even though this had been going on for 17 days. I think it’s another example of the lack of preparedness, uh, that we sometimes has come to light, as it did on 9/11 where we didn’t have a plan for civilian airliners being hijacked. Uh, we’re used to still thinking and we need to, uh, grow from this standpoint that the oceans give us this great protection and we don’t have to worry so much about the homeland. Well, now we’re seeing this happen. This is not a singular event. Um, Norad was talking about what happened in 2019, 2020 out West. That went on for months, and it was crazy. I mean, we’re talking swarms of, of unidentified objects and a mothership coming in and them going inside it and that thing taking off at, uh, lightning speed. So there’s a lot of, uh, very intrusive activity that is unlike what we’ve seen before. After World War II, we had around a lot of our premier bases and facilities, particularly nuclear ones, a lot of activity, but this is really getting more sort of in your face and, and more persistent in many cases. We’ve had some of these things fly up in front of a Navy ship and apparently shine a light right on the bridge, uh, right into the faces of the crew. So it’s like, “we’re here, you can’t do anything about it.” And, uh, so this represents a more provocative, uh, pattern than we’ve seen before. Um, I can’t tell you what happened day three, day four, except that I do know they did start to reach out for other assets. They got a, uh, plane with special sensors from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which they deployed. They started reacting with, uh, some fighter patrols and things like that. But ultimately, they were not successful. [Visual, 1:19:33] Close-up of Gadi Schwartz speaking [Gadi Schwartz, 1:19:32] Yeah. You know, one of the things that I- I always come back to is- and I know this sounds, uh, trite, but- it’s the shrug. There’s a shrug that happens where it’s like, “well, like we don’t know.” You know, and, “what else do you want us to do?” Um, we were just talking about the oceans, Admiral. If something like this happens and, and there is a craft that is beaming a light onto the deck of one of the most powerful ships on planet Earth, where does that shrug come in? Is there a shrug or does it… [Gadi Schwartz, 1:20:00] …just go all the way to the top into this darkness where, you know, maybe there are people that are actually in the know. [Visual, 1:20:00] Panel discussion with moderator Gadi Schwartz and the Disclosure Foundation logo on screen. [Visual, 1:20:06] Wide view of the Russell Senate Office Building Kennedy Caucus Room with the audience and panel. [Tim Gallaudet, 1:20:06] Well, interestingly, thanks Gadi. No, well, from my experience operationally having served on an aircraft carrier and amphibious assault ship and… in other fleet command ship, that… that… I never saw a shrug. It was always reported whenever we saw something in our airspace or waterspace. And actually, I’d like to turn to the ocean. You had mentioned that we have a sense of security because we have these oceans that… that bound us. But… the reality is that we’re seeing these objects in water. And I’ve had submarine officers come to me and talk about objects traveling at speeds in excess of 50 knots, closing uh with constant bearing decreasing range, and having them to order emergency deep… maneuvers to evade. And… and then the object slowed down and… and then trailed them for a time. And this is… this is three submarine officers, very credible. So our oceans aren’t… aren’t as secure as we might think, too. And in all those cases though, they are reported up to higher headquarters. And… you’ve… you’ve seen… [Visual, 1:20:14] Close-up of retired Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet speaking. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:21:06] Higher headquarters though, if… if something like that happens, and… you’d expect that to go to the joint chiefs of staff. I mean, that… that sounds like a… full stop, let’s put all resources, all assets on this. And to our knowledge, that doesn’t happen for some reason. [Tim Gallaudet, 1:21:24] Well, no. This… this does happen. In fact, I have a friend who stands watch, stood watch in the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, which is the watch floor for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and the President. And they take reports from all the combatant commanders. And in fact, when there was that Alaska UAP uh following the Chinese balloon, uh that… that was reported up to my… my buddy who was on watch. Now, all… lot of those… all those comms are classified. So… the… the President knows. These… these are reported. What’s done about it is another story. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:21:58] I oscillate uh as one does when you grapple with this. I oscillate between the possibility that, you know, the credibility of the people that have come forward is pretty impressive. But it does seem that there is some sort of conspiracy cover-up. I just don’t know what the nature is. It’s either the government knows a lot and doesn’t want to share how much they know, or the government knows little and wants to cover up their ignorance. And now we live in a day and age where we’re starting to see what looks like the government saying, “Hey, actually we don’t know, here’s a bunch of the files, you guys look for yourself.” Uh but… is… what camps do you all fall in? Do you think that there are repositories within the government that actually fully understand the phenomena, or is this a… a circumstance of everybody is just out of their depth when it comes to UAP? Go ahead, Kirk. [Visual, 1:23:00] Close-up of Kirk McConnell speaking. [Kirk McConnell, 1:23:01] I guess what I would like to say on that topic is from my 37 years up here in national security, and 8 years before that for a national security consulting company, is when the United States government sees… perceives something that is potentially a threat, they don’t ignore it. The national security establishment goes after problems, right? They may not do it perfectly, they may not do it successfully, but they don’t just ignore stuff. That’s… that’s my experience. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:23:39] So do you think that they have solved the Langley issue? Do you think that they… [Kirk McConnell, 1:23:41] Well, that’s… that’s a different… the two questions. Uh I think they think… they will take… have taken this very seriously over decades, and studied it, studied the hell out of it. Whether they’ve succeeded in unraveling what it is and how it works and that sort of thing is a different question. Uh we have reports from, you know, insiders, a large number of people, who say, “Yeah, progress has really not been uh very significant.” But, you know, you certainly have other reporting that suggests that that’s not true, that there have been some really notable successes. I personally, it’s just an opinion, but I think that these black triangles that fly around, I think they probably are ours. Just from the circumstances of some of the eyewitness accounts. From Eglin Air Force Base, you know, uh from Langley Air Force Base. Dylan… [Marik von Rennenkampff, 1:24:41] Borland. [Kirk McConnell, 1:24:42] Dennis… Dylan Borland uh was smoking a cigarette on Langley Air Force Base, and from the other side of the… of the fence at NASA Langley, he sees this huge black triangle rising up, seemingly out of a big uh building there. And we have other reports from a naval officer, I think Chris knows this gentleman, uh who was driving to work at 5:30 in the morning, uh right outside of Norfolk, and he’s… he’s looking out his sunroof, and there’s this huge black triangle flying low right above him at 50 miles an hour down the interstate, you know. So, uh you know, um is this a UAP, an NHI, that’s just, you know, cruising along at dawn around Norfolk Air Force bases? Uh I kind of doubt it, but who knows. And this is part of the problem with disclosure is we don’t know enough to predict at this point all of the national security ramifications until we know what the hell the government knows or doesn’t know. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:25:49] Marik, I mean, what camp do you fall in? Does the government know a lot, or does the government know a little bit and are covering their asses here? [Visual, 1:26:00] Close-up of Marik von Rennenkampff speaking. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 1:25:59] That’s a good question. I will… I’ll maybe defer to the rest of the panel on that specific question. I want to add just a couple more elements to the Langley story and this broader narrative that we’re seeing of these quote-unquote drone incursions. At Langley, again, 17 nights, these objects were displaying bright flashing lights. And the, that’s the base commander there, commander of Air Combat Command, called it Close Encounters at Langley because they had bright flashing lights. That’s not how you do espionage or surveillance, right? That… that is… that is… that’s breaking rule number one in surveillance if this is a foreign foreign entity. Uh I’ll add that uh former NORAD commander General Glen VanHerck said on 60 Minutes, openly, that they attempted to jam these… these objects and failed, failed. They couldn’t get eyeballs, couldn’t jam them, and yet they’re operating over a key air defense facility right here off the East Coast. Um and that’s… and I want to just add on the kind of on the analytics side, um we saw these… these bright flashing lights occurring for months off the coast of Southern California. I think that the, you know, the FOIA documents show that this is going on from at least March until July of 2019. Several months, these objects swarming these Navy warships, uh LCS ships, right? The… the newest ships in our, some of the most advanced ships in our inventory. Um and thanks to Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, we have video footage, we have radar data from the USS Omaha incident, which is very perplexing because it shows what appears to be a spherical object. And, you know, the… the debunkers have… have put up any number of of nonsense theories for that. When you actually do the analysis, it looks like a spherical object moving against the wind and going into the water. So, um you add in the events uh over the UK, there are several bases in the UK. In 2024, um Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was shut down. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, some folks might know that name, was shut down in 2024 because of drone activity. And… and thanks to John Greenewald’s FOIA work, we know that at least, I think they… they counted at least 15 to 30 objects on radar. Right? These are radar hits. So we have a major problem. I’m going to again defer on the does the government know more or less about this to the rest of the panel. I just want to add some color to how extraordinary these incidents really are. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:28:22] If these… if these… and, you know, it’s not necessarily just an if these uh things are happening as they are. Uh but there is a thought experiment that has to be done, and again, not to trivialize this, but if these things do constitute something that is so far beyond the capabilities that humans have, uh you know, there’s an interdimensional elephant, I think, in the room, as we’ve seen over the last week at least or so, that has now been very much introduced into the mainstream conversation, even though many people have been talking about it before then. But the question is, we’re here celebrating 250 years. Let’s say, for the sake of this thought experiment, that 250 years ago, we were able to send back drones to fly over some of the battles that were happening between us and the British, right? And the… the Continental Army saw these drones up in the sky. And… and maybe one crashed and they took it to George Washington, or actually I think in this case we would be the British because of our military superiority. But, for the sake of the analogy, they have this drone, there are sightings, villagers have seen them, some of the founding fathers have seen them. I cannot, in this thought experiment, ever see George Washington or anybody else that is involved in the military doing any sort of disclosure because of the ramifications that would come from that disclosure. They would not know whether it was the British. They would not know what they were looking at, and some people would think it was witchcraft. And so the question is, if that is… [Visual, 1:30:00] Gadi Schwartz speaking at a panel table. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:30:00] …that’s happening right now. What incentive does the military have in disclosing this to the public? Chris? [Visual, 1:30:08] Wide shot of the panel table and the audience room. [Christopher Mellon, 1:30:09] Yeah, I don’t think the military has a a strong incentive to disclose this to the public. [Visual, 1:30:16] Close-up of Christopher Mellon speaking. [Christopher Mellon, 1:30:16] Uh, to some degree, it’s unfortunate. And when they created the classification guide for for UAP, um, they sort of put down a blanket uh statement that essentially anything UAP-related was going to be classified. And I think it was very short-sighted. It was the typical uh institutional desire to protect military secrets, which is understandable, but I think what they missed was that so much of the energy uh that was leading to greater support from Congress and greater funding uh to study the problem and take action was the result of information reaching the American people. Um, when we look at what happened with Sputnik, for example, imagine if the intelligence agencies had kept that secret. We might not have got to the Moon when we did. The The military needs the public to understand what its challenges are and to build the support here for the funding and the requirements, etc. So, I think um the rank and file, the the the usual sort of routine response is: don’t share anything, lock everything down. And it’s it’s understandable that’s the culture, but I think the the seniors need to make some important exceptions to that. [Visual, 1:31:38] Wide shot of the panel room. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:31:38] And and if I may push back just a little bit, if, and again, we’re we’re assuming, let’s just assume that interdimensional abilities, or or even, you know, interplanetary abilities are are on the table right now. [Visual, 1:31:46] Gadi Schwartz and Christopher Mellon sitting side-by-side. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:31:47] There is a question of asymmetric technology here. And and when you apply that to national security, all of a sudden, you know, the idea of full disclosure, the idea of: actually, this is how we think uh you can travel interdimensionally, or or any of those things, opens up a whole host of issues on: well, can I teleport this into here? Can I teleport this person over here? Like, that that seems to be such a massive game-changer, to the point that it makes national security uh relatively moot. Is that uh something that that comes into the conversation? Are there lines that maybe should not be crossed when it comes to disclosure and national security if we are dealing with that type of technology, Tim? [Visual, 1:32:41] Close-up of Timothy Gallaudet speaking. [Timothy Gallaudet, 1:32:41] Well, yeah, Gadi. And, first of all, I think that’s been the incentive um incentive since past World War II for government our government not to disclose, because no administration wants to admit that it’s it’s vulnerable and can’t protect its citizens, and that the billions of dollars we spend for the Pentagon is potentially useless to uh this unknown possibly adversary. So that that’s that’s true. But then there’s a balance because our public deserves to know what their taxpayer dollars are being used for and how how good our defense system is, for example, or not. And and so that’s that’s the edge I think we’re walking on here, and all of us in the room are are advocating for. Uh, and I see Avi Loeb’s here, so we have a Science Advisory Council that’s been established, and and thankfully we now have the support of the administration to go in and answer some of these questions. [Visual, 1:33:31] Wide shot of the panel room. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:33:31] I can’t wait to see that panel and hear hopefully a little bit more about where things stand with interdimensional travel and and and science right now because, you know, unfalsifiability is is really anything that’s unfalsifiable is is something that, you know, we try to we try to doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true or untrue, we just have to be careful about those conversations. [Visual, 1:33:43] Close-up of Gadi Schwartz speaking. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:33:53] Uh, and yet, when it does come to thought experiments and and playing things out, uh, the idea of this seems like, if these things are true, this seems like fire. This seems like humans don’t understand what fire is, have never seen fire, don’t even know that they can cook, they don’t know about thermodynamics, they don’t know about anything, and there is this technology that maybe be kept away from humans, which we all I think agree should have a right to. Uh, and yet, if that is what’s behind the disclosure wall, uh, Mark, do you think we’re ever going to see that? [Visual, 1:34:33] Wide shot of the panel room. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 1:34:34] Um, I think, you know, if if um the efforts here in in Congress bear fruit and if the, um, you know, I think the the critical mass that is building up in interest, especially with the the presidentially-directed releases that we’ve seen, I think it’s possible that we’ll break through in some respect. I can’t tell you how far that will go. [Visual, 1:34:44] Close-up of Marik von Rennenkampff speaking. [Visual, 1:34:54] Close-up of Kirk McConnell. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:34:55] How about you, Kirk? Do you think that if there is something as game-changing as, you know, as we can understand it, fire, that is on the other side of disclosure, where it is some sort of breakthrough understanding of how the universe works, uh, that it could render entire nations completely moot, there will be disclosure? [Visual, 1:34:58] Wide shot of the panel room. [Visual, 1:35:16] Close-up of Kirk McConnell speaking. [Kirk McConnell, 1:35:17] Well, you know, this this is, sorry. Uh, you know, this gets back to uh the critical question of what’s behind the disclosure wall, you know, what is there? Is it uh is it the kind of technology that is uh that that you uh are alluding to? Um, but more importantly, perhaps, is is it technology that is easily mastered? If it’s really, really hard, like nuclear weapons are incredibly dangerous, you could devastate the whole world, but we were able to apply it to commercial uh uh uses, um, by the the sheer difficulty of engineering a huge enterprise to mine uranium, to enrich it, to use get take a build a reactor and make plutonium, uh, and, you know, tritium and heavy water plants, there’s there’s there’s a lot of difficult engineering steps in practice to to make something that is so dangerous. Uh, so, how hard is it going to be and what are the observables? Can you control it? These are the kinds of calculations that I think the government will have to and the public will have to wrestle with once we get on the other side and try to and and get some understanding of what’s going on. But look, uh, you know, if if this is really dangerous stuff and if it’s easily proliferated or easily mastered, then, you know, you’ve got a problem. Given the state of uh humanity’s uh level of uh of consciousness, you know, we we fight with each other. And uh we have lunatics in the world who will who will blow just as soon blow it up under some circumstances. So, these are really difficult questions, but, you know, you can’t just have it bottled up in in one little place in the in a in a country and uh and and perpetuate that forever. Everybody has to share in this decision-making. [Visual, 1:37:23] Wide shot of the panel room. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:37:23] Chris, I want to bring you in as the man who opened up Pandora’s box. [Christopher Mellon, 1:37:28] I know. That’s why I try to make the case it’s going to be a good thing. [Visual, 1:37:37] Close-up of Christopher Mellon speaking. [Christopher Mellon, 1:37:37] Uh, but what I was going to say is that, you know, we think about say nuclear weapons and the Manhattan Project. We kept it a lid on it until we mastered the technology. You know, if we have something that’s a total game-changer, then probably at some point, we’re going to want our adversaries to know. It’s not a deterrent if if it’s totally secret and they don’t know about it. Um, so there may be a point in time in which we we want to uh uh the country makes a decision to take that out to deter aggression against the United States, that’s conceivable. Um, so I don’t know. I think they have to, you know, they they if they have some technology, how uh developed is it? How reliable is it? When they get to a certain point, they might actually have an incentive to want other countries to know that we possess that capability. [Visual, 1:38:27] Wide shot of the panel room. [Timothy Gallaudet, 1:38:27] And and I’ll add to that, too. Um, one argument for disclosure, to some degree, is to harness the power of the American R&D enterprise. [Visual, 1:38:41] Close-up of Timothy Gallaudet speaking. [Timothy Gallaudet, 1:38:42] And so, like nuclear power, once we mastered it, we then put it out to the national labs and industry, and and we’ve been using nuclear power and when and industry’s building nuclear power in ships and and submarines. So, I think that’s an argument, and and we have again our Science Advisory Council is is here to to make that case and open up the the phenomena to more research that we can hopefully capitalize on it from a security standpoint and a economic prosperity standpoint. [Visual, 1:39:07] Close-up of Gadi Schwartz speaking. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:39:07] So much of this overlaps, like, in eerily overlaps with the issue of artificial intelligence that we now grapple with. [Visual, 1:39:10] Wide shot of the panel room. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:39:16] That’s non-human intelligence, uh, is something that was released to the public very quickly, uh, we don’t fully understand the ramifications, we see the government trying to rein it in, uh, and and doing this odd dance we’re grappling with regulation, we’re grappling with all these things, as a society right now. Uh, Mark, do you see a lot of overlaps between that and UAP? [Visual, 1:39:40] Close-up of Marik von Rennenkampff speaking. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 1:39:40] I I absolutely do. And and maybe at the risk of, um, you know, opening up a second Pandora’s box, um, you know, I think we’ve heard from enough whistleblowers—David Grusch, Jim Lacatski, um, Hal Puthoff, Dr. Eric Davis, um, Colonel Karl Nell—that have all suggested [Visual, 1:40:00] Close-up of Marik von Rennenkampff speaking with Tim Gallaudet seated to his right. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 1:40:00] …it was alleged, and this is also reflected in Congressional legislation, that other nations have also potentially retrieved this technology. And I think it’s the height of irresponsibility not to have a very, very nuanced discussion of what the potential ramifications of that may be if there is, someday, some kind of a disclosure. We need to have a policy in place, because I don’t think, and as I, as I’ve emailed the group here, I don’t think we’re magically going to sing Kumbaya, uh, once, you know, once Trump or Xi or, or Putin announce the existence of non-human intelligence, if that is true. If that is, and again, we have to engage in that scenario planning. I’m sure Admiral Gallaudet knows that the military must, you know, plans for any possible contingency. And I think this is an incredibly important discussion. So, and again at the risk of, uh, going down a, a rabbit hole, let’s imagine that China and Russia have retrieved craft. Let’s imagine that Xi, uh, instructs, uh, all of his, his scientific talent, scientific capital, or Putin does the same thing, uh, to work on this problem. And, oh by the way, they, they have mastered cheap AI technology and can, uh, reverse engineer, make sense of this technology much rap- more rapidly than we can. What happens if one day, and Senator Rubio has spoken openly about this, what happens if one day we wake up and the Chinese have, uh, or the Russians have a national ballistic missile defense system based on this technology? And, oh by the way, they also have an offensive capability, and we’re stuck without that capability. That is an enormous, enormous, not only a national security risk, but a global security risk. So, I’ll just throw that to, to the group. What, what happens if we are ever in that situation? I think that discussion must be had. [Visual, 1:41:44] Wide shot of the panel and the audience in the Kennedy Caucus Room. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:41:44] I think the discussion also must be had, uh, about how, what it would take for a Kumbaya moment. Up until now, we’ve seen, I don’t know if it’s menacing behavior, but definitely, hey, like, we see that you see us or whatever it is, uh, but has there been an aggressive intent or, or, or even a lethal intent ever detected, uh, from your all knowledge, uh, a UAP incident in which there was some sort of, uh, aggressive intent aimed at military service members or, or, or perhaps civilians? [Visual, 1:41:49] Close-up of Gadi Schwartz speaking. [Visual, 1:42:25] Close-up of Admiral Tim Gallaudet. [Tim Gallaudet, 1:42:26] We’ve had radar jamming and that kind of thing, which is serious matter, and… [Gadi Schwartz, 1:42:32] Serious matter to humans. [Tim Gallaudet, 1:42:33] I mean, the military views that as an act of aggression. Uh, that’s not something that, that, that our aircraft and aircraft from other nations engage in, uh, lightly. So, there is that. Back in the ’50s, there were a couple, there was one incident at least where a U.S. fighter aircraft merged on radar with a UAP and never came back. Um, nobody knows what happened, uh, this plane disappeared over the Great Lakes. But, I’m not aware of any, uh, lethal hostility, uh, other than that historical event. [Visual, 1:43:07] Close-up of Kirk McConnell speaking. [Kirk McConnell, 1:43:07] But, in, in that, that’s regarding U.S. platforms. I, I have no knowledge either. However, it’s well-documented in the, uh, AATIP, AAWSAP, and UAP Task Force, uh, investigations, funded over tens of millions of dollars, and as well as others in the room can speak to this, and he wrote about it, that there are individuals who have encountered UAP and had anomalous health effects. So, that, that’s real too. And we certainly cannot claim they’re all benevolent, um, when you know that data is real. [Visual, 1:43:28] Close-up of Admiral Tim Gallaudet and Kirk McConnell. [Visual, 1:43:39] Close-up of Gadi Schwartz speaking. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:43:37] But if there was such an action that was detected by one of the world’s superpowers, do you think that that might be, uh, a catalyst for Putin and Xi and President Trump to, to talk about this together? [Visual, 1:43:53] Close-up of Marik von Rennenkampff speaking. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 1:43:52] I mean, that, that gets to, uh, Chris’s opening remarks about the, the famous Reagan comments at, at the UN in 1987. And a fun little historical fact, um, in 1985 when Reagan first met the new Premier Gorbachev, uh, in Geneva in one of their, I think it was their first summit, um, Cold War tensions were really at, at their height. It was a, it was a very tense moment in the Cold War. And, um, Reagan and Gorbachev had just finished a really intense series of meetings. And it’s, you know, it’s tough going, they’re having a hard time, they’re not getting along, they’re not, they’re not making any progress. And they, they go for a walk, just the two of them. And Reagan asks Gorbachev, just kind of out, out of, on an offhand manner, “Hey, uh, you know, if some, some aliens came around and, and attacked us, would you, would you come and help us?” And, and Gorbachev says, “No doubt about it.” And Reagan says, “Oh, cool, so would we.” And, and they, they shared a little chuckle. And that, you know, that, that kind of broke the ice between these two leaders. And, you know, any historians of the Cold War will know that’s, that’s what led to Perestroika, Glasnost. So, um, you know, there, there is precedent, uh, with Reagan’s commentary. Reagan obviously viewed as the ultimate cold warrior, the, the ultimate, um, national security mindset. But he, you know, clearly had an openness to, to what Chris, again, alluded to in, in his comments, his opening comments, that, yeah, maybe there is room, uh, for, for some kind of negotiation discussion, um, if there is a legitimate perceived threat from any kind of… [Visual, 1:45:19] Wide shot of the panel and the audience. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:45:21] It’s so ironic that that was one of the things that started thawing this, because the entire reason why we’re having this discussion is national security. It’s because humans have been at war with other humans and have been worried about some sort of, uh, technological advantage. Uh, Kirk, if, if there was something, yeah, whether it’s, uh, direct connection between some sort of, uh, non-human intelligence and a leader, government, uh, some sort of, uh, something public, do you think that, that the world is, is right now set up to be able to adapt to that type of paradigm shift? [Visual, 1:46:13] Close-up of Kirk McConnell speaking. [Kirk McConnell, 1:46:00] Uh, I don’t know if this is on, yes. Well, uh, you know, there’s a mixed record, uh, historically on analogous kinds of situations. Um, certainly, indigenous peoples around the world, um, in their encounters with European colonizers, for example, always came out on the bad end of things, um, and to say the least. And, uh, what’s more, that they tended to fracture or remain fractured, like we certainly saw this, um, here in, uh, North America, where, uh, you know, tribes instead of coalescing and fighting a common invader, us, you know, from Europe, uh, they would make deals, right? Uh, in some areas, uh, countries in Europe, for instance, have practiced a sort of balance of power. They see some great power emerge and they band together to resist that, that great power. In the Pacific, we really don’t have any tradition, uh, of that amongst the nations there. So it’s really hard to build a NATO-like, uh, defense, uh, structure in, in the Far East. Uh, but, you know, we have both examples of both things. Faced with a common foe, uh, nations sometimes will band together, right? But, that means that the perception is that this is a really hostile, uh, hostile aggressive, uh, foe. So, is that the model that we, that we, uh, that we hope is going to, is going to happen? It has to be a dangerous situation for us to overcome our differences? Or, uh, is it possible that this is going to be a non-threatening, uh, uh, beings? And that, uh, maybe they’ll just help us raise our, raise our, our consciousness level, our level of, of morality, and, uh, and we’ll start to get along better by the example of these intergalactic visitors, or interdimensional visitors? [Visual, 1:48:41] Close-up of Gadi Schwartz speaking. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:48:02] I think thats, you know, again, not to bring the shrug back, but if there is some sort of hostile intent, all of a sudden, it’s very different than if something is flying around and, you know, maybe surveilling, but not necessarily acting aggressively. Uh, but in the absence of that sort of, uh, first of all, I mean, are we prepared if there is some sort of aggressive action taken, Admiral? I mean, is that, is that something that, I don’t know, exists in, uh, the, the deep recesses of military planning? [Visual, 1:48:42] Close-up of Admiral Tim Gallaudet speaking. [Tim Gallaudet, 1:48:42] That’s a great question. As far as preparedness measures and op orders and whatnot, I, I know of none for the, the phenomena, uh, and there, now granted, I, I’ve been read into compartmented programs, but not in all of them. In fact, Dave Grusch would be the best one to ask. But, uh, but I, I don’t think so. In fact, I’ll share an anecdote. Um, Jay Stratton is a friend. He worked in naval intelligence when I was in the Pentagon, and, and I’m friends with several directors, former directors of naval intelligence. And, uh, and had a meeting with with one of my buddies who just retired out of that office, two-star Admiral, and we were talking about business, but at the end of it, I brought up UAP, and, and he was honest with me and he said, “We, we still don’t know what these are.” So, and of course, AATIP and AAWSAP and the UAP Task Force, uh, did research, did monitoring, uh, but I’m, I think the government is still trying to come to grips. And, uh, and that’s what we’re going to be doing, hopefully with some, a major R&D effort. [Visual, 1:48:50] An audience member holds up a smartphone to record the panel. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:49:41] If, if I could just calibrate because, again, all of these conversations, uh, everyone’s on a different place in the spectrum of where we, how we see this right now. But just to calibrate the, the table here, the big question is, do you think that there are factions of the government that truly understand the nature… [Visual, 1:50:00] Disclosure Foundation logo in the top right corner. Six people sit on stage: a moderator and five panelists behind a table, facing a seated audience in a columned room with red drapes. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:50:00] …of what we’re seeing. And I’ll just, yes or no all the way down. Chris? [Christopher Mellon, 1:50:05] If there are, I’ve not encountered them. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:50:09] How about you, Admiral? [Timothy Gallaudet, 1:50:09] Same. I don’t know. [Speaker 1, 1:50:10] Same. I don’t know. [Speaker 2, 1:50:11] I’m going to agree with the rest of the group. [Kirk McConnell, 1:50:14] Unfortunately, I think that the government knows a lot. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:50:22] Okay. So it’s three probably, probably four to one. Because I, again, this is one of those things… [Visual, 1:50:25] Wide shot of the Kennedy Caucus Room showing the audience and the panel table at the front under large windows and red drapes. [Christopher Mellon, 1:50:29] I agree with Kirk, I think the government knows a lot, but… do they have, do they have a deep understanding of… where this is from, what the values might be, the culture, the origin, all of those kind of things? Not as far as I know. [Timothy Gallaudet, 1:50:46] Yeah, yeah, and I can say this, too, based off Kirk and that, and I’m sure that it’s siloed like everything else in the government. And a good example is this… Sam Gerb is in the room. He’s done some research and he’s he’s pulled out, um, I believe verification that there’s an entity called the National Underwater Reconnaissance Office. And B. R. Inman, Director of National Intelligence spoke about it. Here I was, the Oceanographer of the Navy, the head Oceanographer of the Navy, and high clearance TS-SCI compartmented programs, and I was never read into that. So, you have that kind of siloing, and I would have probably helped that office quite a bit with our data and knowledge. So, there’s the siloing that exists in the government and it’s continually an effort for successive administrations to try to break those down. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:51:34] It was so interesting to hear, I think it was Representative Burlison who said, you know, there is… we forgot how to do this, or we forgot how to do that, and when you look back at the phenomenon, it seems to go back to the 1940s, 1950s. There are allegations that, you know, private contractors have come in, and that would also help explain why it seems as though there are many in the government that have no idea about any of this and are very dismissive. In terms of active funding though, for those things, they have to have an SAP, they have to have some sort of access to either private capital or access to our tax dollars. How does the SAP process work when it comes to protecting our national secrets and when it comes to protecting things that, you know, have been overlooked for decades and decades and decades, Chris? [Christopher Mellon, 1:52:34] Well, we actually have… and it varies by agency and department. Um, we do have a very, uh, extensive system in the Defense Department for bringing all the SAPs together in one place under one committee. They’re all reviewed, they’re reported to Congress. Um, I sat on that committee and never saw anything related to UAP. It doesn’t mean there aren’t things outside of that. There are things called alternative compensatory control mechanisms. There are other workarounds that sometimes people put into effect, um, or some people may just not be compliant, um, and not, not register their, their program with the SAP oversight system. But we actually have a pretty, pretty robust active system for accounting for all these things and monitor them. I will also tell you that people who think the government can’t keep a secret are absolutely wrong. Um, the government keeps all hundreds of these SAP programs, and in my experience, not a single one of them leaked except for one that we used in combat, which was therefore exposed to the press and the media and got in Newsweek and whatever. But all those other programs remain completely under lock and key and completely unknown. And they were not things that, uh, the public would have a problem with. They were mostly just very technical things like, you know, how do you make a tank armor tougher, how do you make a missile warhead more effective, that kind of stuff. So, it’s not really even very press-worthy necessarily, but it’s stuff you don’t want your adversaries to know. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:54:11] And yet, if there was truly some sort of crash retrieval program or some sort of… I mean, you’re talking, like, the amount of money you would have to hide for something like that to exist… [Christopher Mellon, 1:54:23] Well, one of the stories is that they gave up trying to do the, uh, one of the main sources that we had initially on crash retrieval was that they closed the program down because they were making no headway and they were spending a lot of money. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:54:38] Well, tell me more. Tell me everything about this. [Christopher Mellon, 1:54:42] Well, we have… we’ve got some other people in the room here that that, uh, that could speak to that as well that, um… but that’s, that’s my… and, and then they tried, some other folks tried to make a deal to get them to, to bring some of that out of, uh, as they were closing the program down, to take another stab at trying to understand the technology. Um, that’s only one narrative. There are, there are competing narratives. But that was one of the, uh, original narratives… um, that, that one of the people that I first brought to the hill to, um, raise this issue, uh, back in 2019, that was the story, uh, that was given. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:55:25] If, you know, and again, this is all, for me at least, a thought experiment, a very important thought experiment that we should all participate in. But if the government is or was ever in possession of off-world or, or non-human craft, biologics, whatever the case may be, again, we go back to the there is fire that we are not privy to, there is something that is so far beyond, uh, you know, anything we can do with our civilization that would change literally everything. Uh, if that’s the case, I know that public polling suggests that people want to know, but if that’s the case, do you think that we are ready for that type of disclosure? [Christopher Mellon, 1:56:07] I do. I think that that’s what our polling data is telling us and, and by the way, I think in terms of the international impact, I don’t think you have to have, uh, aggression, lethality, or hostility. I think the mere fact that there is a more powerful actor, um, operating in our seas and in our skies, even if nothing changed from the way it is today, that would globally raise all kinds of, of, uh, concerns and, and, uh, I think that would affect all of the major countries, and I think they would probably come together to talk about it. What do you know? What are you seeing? You know, how can we work together on this? [Visual, 1:56:41] A woman in a blue dress walks across the stage in front of the panel table. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:56:54] Unless it posed a threat to power. [Christopher Mellon, 1:56:56] If it were confirmed that, that there is a non-human intelligence operating craft in our atmosphere, I think that would be immediately of immense concern to every major power. [Gadi Schwartz, 1:57:07] Kirk, I want to bring you in here because, you know, again, if, if that is disclosed, like, the one thing that, that would be very vulnerable is, is power as humans understand it. [Kirk McConnell, 1:57:18] Vulnerable? [Gadi Schwartz, 1:57:19] Vulnerable, yeah. All of a sudden, the idea of, of, of rulers or, or democracy or, or those types of things… you open up that door and there are a lot of questions about how we want to be led. Uh, do you think that… same question. Do you think that if that is the case, if we’re assuming that the crash retrieval allegations are real, uh, and that the United States has possibly been in possession of human, uh, non-human biologics, do you think that the… the power structures on Earth are ready for that type of disclosure? [Kirk McConnell, 1:57:55] Uh, I, I don’t think I really, uh, have a strong view about that, but I will say that it’s, uh, you know, bad news doesn’t get better, uh, over, over time. And, uh, you know, people have to buckle up and, uh, and face it, uh, and I think governments have to do that. So, if that’s the reality… if that’s the reality that we’re facing, we’re going to have to learn to deal with it. So, I, I don’t think… I’m anticipating the next question is, well, if we’re not ready, should we just put a lid on it? And I, I end up thinking, no. You can’t, you can’t, you shouldn’t put a lid on it and pretend that you’re not noticing this. Uh, but I, I will say this, you know, if, if these, uh, if we are being visited by non-human intelligent beings, uh, interdimensional or intergalactic or whatever, uh, they’ve probably been here a long time. And I think historically there is some evidence to, to make us think that they have been coming here a long time. Um, you know, they’re that… if they’re that much superior to us, if they meant, uh, to be really aggressive, uh, I think we’d have, we’d have figured that out by now. Um, so, you know, I, I think that’s a data point to suggest that, um, that this will… uh, that there’s a benign aspect, or something that is, uh, keeping these, uh, these, these beings from taking over the place. You know, either they’re not interested, or they’re beyond that. It’s like, you know, it’s, it’s just not something that they engage in, or something, uh, has, has, has kept us, uh, kept us safe. So, I, I have, I have some hope that, uh, that we will, uh, rise to the occasion and, uh, recognize, uh, you know, superior technology and so on. Um, yeah. [Visual, 2:00:00] Five panelists sit at a table in the Kennedy Caucus Room, with the “Disclosure Foundation” logo on screen. [Kirk McConnell, 2:00:00] So I I am hopeful that we can deal with it, but if not, that’s not a reason not to face it. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:00:08] We live in such an interesting time. Today is a day that and I I could I could truly say this. There’s one person that could change all of this, like right now, right? Uh and he’s just down the street and he has seemed to have uh an interest in all of this. And yet we don’t see that. We we see, you know, him definitely toying with the with the topic. But do you think that President Trump is read in on the true nature of what UAP represents or all of the dealings that the United States government has historically had with with the phenomenon? [Visual, 2:00:58] Close-up shot showing four of the panelists at the table. [Timothy Gallaudet, 2:00:52] Well, I can address that partially. So, President Trump personally, I don’t know, but when he took uh came in office, we I met with some of his appointees in the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, I think, and Development. And, and they were committed to look under the hood and gain control, with political appointees, of of the whole UAP issue. And so they were very hell-bent on getting the deep state wrestling the topic from them. And so, and I’ve, and I’ve seen them move out in every other topic area in that way. So, I, I tend to think at least there are people in the administration who know. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:01:34] And how far along do you think they might be? [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:01:39] Well, I was just going to say that, um, I spoke with someone in the White House staff about this who was an ardent supporter of, uh, of disclosure, who worked directly on in these areas, on, uh, national security and intelligence, and during his tenure there—he is no longer there—the issue never came up, that, that he saw, and he was frustrated about it, trying to, to look into it himself, but he was not privy to any briefings that, uh, that touched on, on matters of UAP beyond, uh, sort of meeting some Navy pilots and some more routine—nothing about, you know, crash recovery, that sort of thing. Now, since he left, perhaps there’s been other briefings, I don’t know. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:02:26] Mark, we we live in a time when also the the interest in the topic of UAP has gone into some weird domains. We all think back to what happened when there was a big hype over alien.gov, and we’ve seen the issue somewhat politically weaponized to focus on illegal immigration. Are you worried about that type of political weaponization of of something like this? [Christopher Mellon, 2:02:58] That’s a, that’s a really good question. I know there’s a lot of disappointment when that website was rolled out. I think, you know, a lot of people, perhaps rightfully, viewed that as frankly an insult to all the whistleblowers who have come forward, testified to Congress, um, some, as you know, as Senator Rounds and Secretary Rubio said, at great cost to themselves, um, and, um, so, look, that, that is disappointing. At the end of the day, I think this, this topic is so much bigger than any kind of what I now see as a distraction. I think, you know, with the Spielberg film, and again, these tranches of these releases that are coming out, I do think that there is—I mean, look how full this room is. Look at the, look at the venue that we are in here. Um, it, it’s pretty extraordinary to see how this has developed, and it’s only growing. So, I, I feel that a critical mass again is building, and I think those, those distractions, if you will, um, I, I don’t think will, I hope will not stop progress on this topic. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:03:56] As that critical mass builds, so does the noise around all of this. For those of us who have been following this for pre-2017, you know, it’s even for us it’s hard to keep your eye on what, what we’re talking about here, right? Um, now we have AI making things even noisier. I do wonder how all of that noise affects, uh, the operational lens of national security. If all of a sudden you are literally having to track down and, and trace down every single, uh, report that comes in, uh, and, and you don’t have the manpower, is that something that, that should be of concern right now? [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:04:41] Well, it’s interesting about AI, because we are going to be dealing with a superintelligence one way or another. Maybe we’ll be dealing with two, but we’re certainly going to be dealing with one. And that one’s probably a bigger threat to your job and your career than, than the other one’s going to be. So, um, I, I think we actually probably need, uh, to change our style of government in some degrees. I’ve tried to, uh, propose something, uh, in an article in Politico, recognizing that, um, one, the, the average representative is not a deep technical programmer and that kind of thing. But we have a range of increasingly, uh, technologically demanding, sophisticated issues, and I think there’s, there’s alternative means for bringing in people with, on a very bipartisan basis, that have deep expertise, that can formulate policy. And the model that I would use is the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, where Congress said, uh, ‘This is too hard for us, we keep failing at this. We’re going to set aside, we’re going to pick a group of people from both parties who are genuine experts, and those people are not raising money, they’re not running for office, they’re not getting paid off by special interest groups.’ And they’re going to actually, not going to write a commission study that goes on a shelf; they’re going to write legislation that’s going to automatically become law unless vetoed by the president or two-thirds in Congress. And I think the first year they saved $700 million for the taxpayer. It was so successful they did it three other times. I think it’s a very interesting model for the public to think about, as we increasingly face issues that are not of the kind that the founding fathers envisioned, and as we think about how our society has evolved into one in which money plays such an overwhelming role in elections and access to our politicians. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:06:45] I, that makes me think of that, that weird little drone thought experiment. George Washington holding a drone. Benjamin Franklin holding a drone. We’d have a very different, uh, society, I think. And yet, and I, I feel sacrilegious even, uh, bringing this up. But, uh, that was for base closures. That was for saving money. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:07:05] Right, but that model can be used for other things. But that wasn’t necessarily for… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:07:09] Right, right. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:07:11] For AI it would be good. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:07:12] For AI, yes. A paradigm-shifting, technological breakthrough? We’d need something a little bit more drastic which, again, very interesting conversation. I’m hoping that you guys will, will participate here. But do we need a different form of government? Do we need to tweak some of, of the way that we are governed here in America and beyond? Admiral? [Timothy Gallaudet, 2:07:36] Well, there’s a lot of room for change and improvement. I’ll say that. But, but I think Chris is right. I think we can look at past precedent and apply models that have been successful to, to this problem. Um, but I want to go back to, uh, some of the other discussion. My, my, um, about whether we should know or not and open this up or put a lid on it. Uh, one of my favorite quotes from Chris is, ‘When has ignorance ever been a good national strategy?’ And, and I think… [Visual, 2:08:05] Wide shot showing the room, audience, and stage setup. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:08:09] Yeah, the the idea of, you know, explaining that to George Washington, and it’s like, ‘No, no, no, there are these things called combustible, you know, engines and, and, and everyone’s, you’re going to have Uber drivers,’ and like, the idea of just gunpowder and those types of things in the hands of just everyday citizens, it would boggle the mind, and yet 250 years we can look back at, at the progress that we’ve made. But Marik, the government question, do we need a different framework, uh, if this truly is what many people suspect it is? [Visual, 2:08:14] Close-up shot of the panelist group. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:08:40] Um, in short, no. I mean, I think democracy is what, the least bad option of government, right? So, um, I, I think at the end of the day, um, the system should be answerable to the people. If these allegations, again, that have been made under oath from a variety of whistleblowers are true, the system has failed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we overthrow or change the system entirely. Sure, again, I agree there could be many tweaks. I think, I think we can all agree money and influence in politics are corrosive. Um, but at the end of the day, I, I don’t think we, we throw the baby out with the bath water. We don’t change the entire system. [Timothy Gallaudet, 2:09:19] Yeah, and let me point to the good that’s being done. I know Representative Burlison put in, I think, a provision for the 2027 NDAA about, uh, convening, I think, a panel to, to review records and release records. Uh, and so that’s, that, that’s positive. Again, we have now this, the White House, again, I’ll make the pitch, the, uh, Science Advisory Council. So, that’s a positive development. And then you have various record releases under this Pursuit program, which is revealing some very interesting information, and we’re going to work to get more data for. So, I think, uh, right now we’re at a time where there is positive development, certainly when you look at, go back a decade and compare the two, and most [Visual, 2:10:00] Gadi Schwartz, Christopher Mellon, Kirk McConnell, Marik von Rennenkampff, and Timothy Gallaudet are seated at a panel table on stage under a Disclosure Foundation logo. [Kirk McConnell, 2:10:00] …most of us in this room would never believe we’d be here having this discussion, uh, 10 years ago. And so, uh, right now I think let’s just monitor the progress and do the best we can, and then and then ideas for change will arrive. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:10:14] And Kirk, I mean again, going back to executive branch, judicial branch, Congress, states’ rights, do you think that that framework is adequate? Do we have enough self-correcting mechanisms in here to be able to deal with a technological advance like many people suggest? [Timothy Gallaudet, 2:10:33] Well, I’m I’m I’m in agreement with, uh, Marik that, um, uh, for all of our, uh, flaws in the way our government functions, I think it’s the best, uh, it’s the best model that we have. But I I would say this, um, what’s wrong now is that we’re not living up to what our structure is. Uh, the idea that Congress can go 80 years without an- officially and and consistently being part of the, uh, uh, making of policy in the in an area like this is just unconscionable. Um, and I you can’t sugarcoat it. I’m an institutionalist of of this institution, and this is what offends me as as much as anything about this is keeping Congress out of the picture, out of the decision-making process is just, uh, indefensible. So… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:11:33] And all of that is done in the interest of… [Visual, 2:11:39] Wide shot of the Kennedy Caucus Room filled with an applauding audience. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:11:43] And it’s fascinating because all of that is, or at least, we believe, may have been done in the interest of, of national security, right? National security is the great, uh, line that is verboten to cross. Are you all suggesting that national security maybe, you know, when we’re talking about whistleblower protections and we’re talking about some of the details in the language on, uh, who can come forward and what they can say, national security once again comes, uh, right back front and center. Um, how how do you navigate that when it comes to the specific language and and what people are allowed to disclose to the public, to individual members of Congress, and then possibly to the executive? [Christopher Mellon, 2:12:29] The good news is nobody has ever been prosecuted for bringing classified information to Congress, uh, and presenting it in a secure facility to an appropriate committee. So, uh, I would say the the doors are wide open, they remain open. We’re doing everything we can to encourage people to come forward, and I do think there’s room for additional legislation to provide additional compensation or protections to people. Um, here at the Disclosure Foundation, we have a legal staff that’s prepared to provide free legal advice to people that may, uh, have questions about their rights and and, uh, obligations. So we’re trying to facilitate that in in any way we can. But, um, the people that have come forward to date, um, uh, none of them have been prosecuted. Uh, they’ve suffered administrative sort of, uh, blowback in some cases, and, uh, that is, uh, a more difficult, uh, thing to to shield them from. But I would say right now, that’s the principal, uh, problem that they that they face if they do come to Congress. And so more can be done in that regard. [Kirk McConnell, 2:13:45] Yeah, and at the end of the day, um, we swore an oath to the Constitution. And we’re a government by the people, for the people. And so I think that the people have a right to know. [Visual, 2:13:58] Wide shot of the audience applauding. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:14:02] Admiral, you, you of all people here at the, at the desk, you know, you took quite quite a risk in coming forward and in approaching this before it was very mainstream. It’s so weird because now I keep finding myself in conversations with, I believe, the same people that I’ve been arguing with throughout the years, and I’m surrounded, I’m like, wait a minute, I thought I was the one that had to convince you guys to take this stuff seriously and now you’re all just assuming that it’s aliens. Like, we have to deal with this with nuance. And they’re like, wait, are you the skeptic? And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know, but so often, it does seem as though, you know, the pendulum has, has swung. Um, and now we have the ability to, to look beyond the stigma. But now that that has happened, do you think that the whistleblower, the additional whistleblower protections that are being discussed are necessary, or do you think that this idea of just going straight to your congressman or going straight to, uh, an executive in the correct manner are sufficient to bring about more disclosure? [Timothy Gallaudet, 2:15:11] Um, well, I I think, uh, I agree completely with what Chris said, is that, uh, you know, there’s no case of of people even attempted to be prosecuted, much less convicted, for sharing classified information with Congress in a secure manner. Um, now, he also then said, “Yeah, but they have administrative weapons to apply.” And I would, I, I think that we all take that incredibly seriously, and it’s, it’s a real problem. Whistleblower protections are simply inadequate. They just absolutely are ridiculous. One, ridiculously one-sided. Um, and so, this is, uh, this is a real, it is a real problem, and it is, it is still ongoing today. You’ll, you’ll lose your job, you’ll lose your clearance, um, you’ll, your, your reputation, uh, it’s really difficult to, to start a new career, you know, uh, from scratch. Um, and you got a family to support, you have yourself to support. Uh, the deck is really stacked against, against these people. Um, and, you know, Congress is, is has a right, you know, the, the way procedures have been set up in law, uh, people can come forward and disclose to Congress, it doesn’t mean that, that Congress has the tools to protect them from reprisals. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:16:39] If if I may try to straw man the other side of of that argument, um, let’s say all of a sudden, we got whistleblower protection that has specific language that has to do with UAP, and that becomes the next, “Well, hey, I have an HR issue, I hate my boss. Uh, guess what? I now have some language that will protect me that will let me take this all the way, all my grievances all the way to the tippity-tippity-top. And oh yeah, I definitely was abducted, or something along those lines,” right? That does open up the floodgates, the HR floodgates, uh, that could be out there. Again, I’m so glad that we’re having these conversations because this is step two, step three, step four, in in trying to suss out some of the unintended consequences, but that’s got to be a concern, right? [Christopher Mellon, 2:17:29] I think there is a legitimate concern on the part of the executive branch. It’s hard to manage, uh, in my experience, it’s challenging to manage a civilian, a civil service workforce because you don’t have the ability to fire people. And, um, if, you know, to some extent, uh, they’re they’re somewhat like tenured academics. And, so you have to lead by, you know, hopefully by example or by inspiration. But, uh, they can be a management challenge for people in the executive branch. And if their subordinates are running out, um, you know… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:18:03] It makes me think like there’s no… [Christopher Mellon, 2:18:03] …those those things really chew up the clock. I mean, um, they can they can take over your your time and your day and and sort of, um, it’s a big deal if one of your subordinates does something like that. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:18:17] There is no HR for UFO Twitter, as you guys probably have noticed, but… [Christopher Mellon, 2:18:23] So, you know, I think that, I don’t think that’s a reason not to have whistleblower protection, but I do think it needs to be carefully crafted. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:18:30] Yeah, go ahead. [Timothy Gallaudet, 2:18:32] Well, I I would say that, that the, your reasoning is not, uh, is certainly not unsound. Um, and this has been the rationale, I think, for, uh, for, that’s prevented reforms, uh, to date. Um, you know, Congress has, has been reluctant to open the floodgates, right? Uh, waste, fraud, and abuse has been around forever, and people who report that, uh, uh, should be, uh, and have been rewarded. Um, but at the same time, you do have this problem of how do you control your, control your workforce and, uh, and do you let them make frivolous, uh, uh, charges and the like. So it is a problem, um, um, and and you see that Congress is reluctant to really vigorously, uh, reform the whistleblower protection standards. At the same time, I think that, uh, something could be done around this specific issue. Like, you know, you could do, set up, uh, uh, set of protections for this class of whistleblower, and you could put a sunset on it. You know, you could give people three years, five years, or whatever, to come forward. Um, I, uh, I think also there’s potentially a role for the private sector to… [Visual, 2:20:00] Disclosure Foundation logo on panel video with five panelists seated on stage. [Hal Puthoff, 2:20:00] …to raise money, um, um, privately to compensate, uh, people, restitution fund or something like that. Uh, but at some point, I think we’re going to have to face even the larger question, uh, like South Africa did, uh, with apartheid, is, you know, we’re going to need some kind of truth and reconciliation process at the end of this, because we’ve had 80 years of this kind of suppression, uh, and there’s lots of bones buried, I think. And, uh, uh, so, it’s a difficult problem, but again, it’s something that we have to figure out a solution for. [Curt Jaimungal, 2:20:43] We also live in a day and age in which the, uh, the gatekeepers are no longer the gatekeepers, uh, from the government all the way down through the media, right? So, all of a sudden, everybody has access to, if things line up, the entire population of planet Earth, or given whatever social media platform you choose, uh, and, and yet, we we so often think disclosure may come from the government. And then we see things like the sphere, or, you know, the the mummies, or and, and again, trying to grapple with what is real, what is not real. Uh, if there is a non-human intelligence, they may not be selective of who who they are disclosing their origin from, if they exist. Uh, and and that type of disclosure may not come from a government, it may come from just, uh, anybody on the street. [Hal Puthoff, 2:21:38] I tell you, I, I love that, this question, because it, it opens up such an, incredibly important aspect of this problem. Uh, we have Avi Loeb here, we have other, uh, technical scientific people here, Hal Puthoff, that represent private efforts. Never mind, hell with the government, you know, let’s figure this out ourselves. And, and we’re, you know, maybe getting to the point where private sector funding and private sector, uh, acumen, and the instruments that are affordable and so on, that, that maybe, uh, we, we can think about, uh, the, the private sector discovering, uh, things, uh, on its own, uh, uh, without the government. I would also say that, as someone’s, uh, people have brought up here today, the people who have, uh, encountered non-human intelligent beings, either been abducted or close encounters, and, uh, and they have a lot of information. Uh, they’ve been marginalized and ridiculed for decade upon decade, but they are a repository of, of, of, uh, knowledge about the nature of these, these beings and how they communicate, what they’ve communicated, why they say they’re here, uh, why they say that they’re behaving the way they do. So, I think there is a great untapped potential for the private sector to pitch in and, and solve this problem. [Visual, 2:23:15] Audience applauds. [Curt Jaimungal, 2:23:28] And, and yet with something like that, it comes the, the question of, of filter, applying any sort of filter. Uh, for myself, I mean, I’ve had an experience that doesn’t pass the, you know, the, uh, unfalsifiable, threshold there where it’s like, okay, I, I, I just, you know, I don’t know. Um, but when you’re dealing with that at scale, how do you apply any filter to, to try to suss out the signal from the noise? Marc? [Marc Cecotti, 2:24:00] That is, uh, that’s the million dollar question from an analytic perspective. And, and I just want to go back to, kind of the discussion just now and, kind of, bring this all together. And, um, I think, with the latest batch of releases that we’ve gotten from the, from the, uh, White House and the government, um, some of you might be familiar with a series of incidents in 2023 occurring at a series of, uh, test ranges out West, where, uh, over the course of several nights, six law enforcement officers observed fiery reddish orbs, these spheres. Fast forward to late last year, 2025, um, and you had, quite literally, senior intelligence officials flying around in a helicopter, literally hunting UFOs. They had received word, intel, radar tracks, um, that there was anomalous activity at another range out West. I don’t know what that is, Tonopah, China Lake, you can, you can go up and down the list, but apparently this is around one of these sensitive facilities, and they’re in this helicopter flying around, um, and all of a sudden you see, they, these, you know, four, six observers, pilots in, in this helicopter see these bright reddish-orange orbs right above the rotor blades lighting up. And it, apparently, in, in a T-shape forma- formation. Um, they, they move on, they get some more radar tracks, and they ultimately see, they’re, they’ve got their night vision goggles on, and they, uh, they’re, they know that fighter jets are operating in the area, and they, uh, see these bright reddish-orange orbs, uh, directly above these fighter jets flaring up and then flaring down. And, oh, by the way, the government has released 32, I think, images, infrared images from that second series of events, that helicopter, that helo series. Uh, and guess what? You can see a, a round object, black-hot, very black, uh, compared to its surroundings, and it’s a desert, it’s a desert background, so it’s not a Starlink flare for, for, uh, you know, for our skeptic friends out there. Um, and, oh, by the way, this is the Foo Fighter phenomenon. This goes back to 1945, where, um, I find this truly fascinating, the oldest documents in this, these releases, 1944, ‘45, describe precisely the same do- uh, phenomenon, the same morphology, as the most perplexing recent incidents. So, I think that, that, for, from an analytic perspective, I see that as a form of soft disclosure. The government is saying, we have this one morphology that we are seeing consistently operating in clearly intelligently controlled ways. Um, that is, that is out there, folks. Any, anybody can go on aaro.mil/ufo and look at this. This is happening live. Um, you know, again, this is, only people in the weeds kind of connect these dots, but we’re here, this is happening right now. So, um, I probably didn’t answer your question, but I did need to highlight that incredible series of events that, um, um, you know, we see consistently. And I’ll just add quickly, I, I’m one of the weirdos who’s gone in and read the raw case reports Project Blue Book over the years, and guess what? Reddish, fiery orbs are ubiquitous in these reports. And you, I can point to several instances in the 1952 Washington, D.C. flyovers where people saw reddish, orange orbs, Foo Fighters, flying over D.C. So, um, this is it. This is happening live, and I think this is a form of soft disclosure. [Kevin Knuth, 2:27:32] Right. And to go back to your question, though, about how do you filter the signal from the noise, scientific standards is the answer. So, if we get, not only private citizen scientists, which I think Curt was alluding to, but, but academic institutions to mainstream this. This is a problem. The government relies on all sorts of academic institutions and labs, and getting them to accept and institutionalize the research of UAP is going to increase our understanding and also make it more palatable for the public. And, and that is a movement that’s occurring right now. You have it at Harvard, you have at University of Albany just got funded to study UAP, you have the, the Sol Foundation at Stanford University, and there are others. And so, it’s, it’s happening. It’s, it’s growing. [Christopher Mellon, 2:28:19] I think one of the incredible telling things is that those videos have been watched now over a billion times. It’s incredible, incredible the amount of public interest in this topic globally. So, I find that very encouraging. [Curt Jaimungal, 2:28:37] And, and yet, when I watch those videos like a hawk, I, I am looking for certain characteristics, and some of them come close, and yet that smoking gun eludes us. And, if you’ve covered this for as long as, as I have, or, or you’ve been dealing with this for as long as you have, there are always rumors about things that could allegedly settle this once and for all immediately. Right outside of these doors, we have such and such, or we’re going to air drop this video to everybody right now, and from here on out, we don’t have to talk about whether or not this is happening anymore. How are those things real? How close are we to actually seeing things emerging from the ocean, or things from 50 feet away from a cockpit, or things with high fidelity, a physical evidence that could just put this to bed today? [Christopher Mellon, 2:29:29] Yeah, um, what I can, one thing I can say is that we’ve helped to, uh, Eric representative Burlison compiled lists of specific videos, some of which some of us have seen in a classified setting. Uh, they’re not necessarily going to be the, uh, you know, perfect Hollywood quality video, but I think they, they’re better than what’s been released and more informative and could help move the needle. Uh, of course, many of them I haven’t seen myself, so I… [Visual, 2:30:00] Five panelists sit on a stage under a Disclosure Foundation logo, facing an audience. [Christopher Mellon, 2:30:00] I don’t know, some… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:30:01] Many of them you haven’t seen, but have you seen… [Christopher Mellon, 2:30:03] I have seen, I have seen some that would I think move the needle, and, um… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:30:08] Move the needle, or like, break it? [Christopher Mellon, 2:30:10] Um, I think it would be, uh, not necessarily… the skeptics are going to be resisting anything up to the point of the President coming out and making an announcement. I don’t think it is going to settle the issue… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:30:24] You think that would settle it for them? [Christopher Mellon, 2:30:25] But I think it would, I think it would… I think there’s certain video that would help move it further, much further in the direction of, wow, this is kind of crazy. And this is hard to explain. And, uh, so, uh, you know, we’re actually specifying individual videos and helping the Congress prepare a list of those which are being requested. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:30:46] And, and it, it, the move… the needle is already moving tremendously, so on behalf of everybody, thank you guys for this. Uh, Admiral, have you seen anything that would break that needle? [Tim Gallaudet, 2:30:57] No, I’m not seeing… [Tim Gallaudet, 2:30:59] No, I got it, I’m not seeing with my own eyes, even though I, I know people who have. In fact, Chris just mentioned this, uh, now Captain, by the way, he’s got promoted to Captain in the Navy, who observed a triangle over the interstate near Norfolk, and these are pretty convincing, and I’m, I’m not in the camp to think that that’s our technology. So, I know people, but not myself. [Christopher Mellon, 2:31:21] I think that is our… I think that could be our technology, but I would point out that those triangles have been observed since at least the 50s. So it’s not just our technology. It might have been reverse engineered, perhaps, but it’s, it’s not, not historically always been our technology. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:31:39] It doesn’t have to be us today. Could be us tomorrow. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:31:44] Can I quickly jump in? It’s not just the four or five of us talking about black triangles. The former deputy director of the Pentagon’s UFO analysis office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Tim Phillips, has said the two morphologies that perplexed him, freaked him out, are, you guessed it, fiery spheres and black triangles. That’s the government. That’s… that is the… the deputy director, acting director of that office has specifically said the government is perplexed by black triangles, so you know, do with… do with that what you will, but I think that is, again, it’s not just us talking about that. That is the government. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:32:22] Marik, I want to ask you, you know, what… what case was it that brought you into… into all of this? [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:32:24] The Gimbal case, which uh, these gentlemen know very well, um, and I’ve worked very closely with legitimate real scientists, citizen scientists. There is an enormous amount of data in that video. We can, you know, we know where the camera’s looking, we know where the… where the plane is flying, um, and we have now found with a very high degree… and I challenge anybody, any scientist that wants to talk with me about this, I can go for days, um, um, we have a very high degree of confidence that that object was at that close range described by the aviators, tracked on radar, observed on their… their FLIR sensor… I think Ryan’s in the audience here, we picked his brain quite a bit… um, and we can reconstruct in 3D the flight path that that object takes. And it does extraordinary maneuvers with no wings, no engines, no exhaust plume, because again we know how close it is. We know the distance and the range is the most important element of all of these of these analyses, and through through multiple different methods we are able to have high confidence that we know the range that that object is at. And oh, by the way, the government, um, the Pentagon has has has said zero. There’s no case resolution. They have been silent on that um, uh, on that incident. And I just want to quickly add, sorry, I can I can go on for a while, but Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the Pentagon’s UFO analysis office, told me on two separate occasions that the Gimbal object was a balloon reflecting sunlight. You can hear on the audio the aircrew saying it’s moving against 120-knot winds. I don’t know any balloons that can move against hurricane-force winds, number one. Number two, this was at night. A balloon reflecting the sunlight at night moving against a 120-knot wind. That’s Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick for you, folks. Um, it’s it’s and told me that twice, twice. And that, oh, by the way, that is the most recognizable UFO footage of all time. And what did the taxpayers pay him to do? Study UFOs. And he’s telling me that the most recognizable footage of all time is a balloon uh moving against hurricane force winds. I don’t know what to tell you. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:36:38] Yeah, and, and, and Chris, again, thank you for opening Pandora’s box with, with that video and the others. Uh, Admiral, I want to ask you same question: was there a particular case that that forced you to look at this? [Tim Gallaudet, 2:36:51] I’ve spoken about this at length, but it was the Go Fast video because I, when before it was declassified, that I saw that on the Navy secret network. And because when Ryan was flying off the East Coast from the Theodore Roosevelt, I had a bunch of we… meteorologists on that ship and other ships in the in the strike group doing the training exercise, so I was tracking the exercise. And I got the SIPR email and it was from the operations officer, I’ve told the story a lot, of… from Fleet Forces Command and he asked all the subordinate commanders and staff, “Do you know what these are? We’re having near mid-air collisions in this exercise and we’re going to have to shut it down if we if we don’t resolve this.” And so yeah, that video crossed my desk and I, I know we don’t experiment with technology like that in training ranges, especially if it’s going to potentially hazard aircrew. And uh, and then, and Jay Stratton and I have addressed this, he was involved in getting that video and the email taken taken from everybody’s computer afterwards, because at the time they were not sure if it was foreign tech or not. But since, they’ve they’ve determined it was it was unexplained, and it wasn’t foreign tech. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:38:02] Just very quickly, the Go Fast video occurred 10 minutes before Gimbal, and it’s the same aircrew, same night. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:38:11] And there are people that shrug, and then there are people that don’t, and uh, you know, that’s kind of what leads you down this path, so appreciate that. Uh, Kirk, same question: was there a particular case that brought you in? [Kirk McConnell, 2:38:23] I think… I think the case, more than any other for me, was… was the Tic Tac uh incident off Southern California. Sitting down with Dave Fravor and Alex Dietrich, those pilots, uh, and they walked through carefully uh the sequence of events. You know, that one had everything, right? It had… it had uh eight sets of eyeballs on, uh, from experienced operators, on this object. You had radar from the E-2C, the Navy’s version of AWACS, you had uh the uh Aegis radar uh getting the thing. You had the radar on the F/A-18 at one point got it, you had infrared uh sensing of this object, uh all the same event. You had all these different modalities uh, and different kinds of sensors, all across the electromagnetic spectrum, uh and it’s it’s just an extraordinary event. Um, so, yeah, that was early on in our uh investigation up here uh that it was like, okay, this… this is this is really serious. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:39:43] And Kirk points to something I think we should probably address in this national security panel, and that is, there’s been a running narrative uh from individuals including the aforementioned Dr. Kirkpatrick that the Tic Tac was US tech. And and so, Kirk is… [Visual, 2:40:00] Five men sit at a panel table on a stage in front of a red curtain and a US flag. [Tim Gallaudet, 2:40:00] fairly convinced that that that was not, or is, is unexplained. And yeah, yeah, you know, I’ve talked to Alex, David, and the, the other pilots, myself. And so, what about that disinformation? It’ll be very interesting right now, uh, because with the whole pursuit, UFO file drop, the Science Advisory Council, I’m waiting to see if that disinformation effort that the government has sponsored in different offices, if it’s going to discontinue or not. I mean, it was only very recently that Dr. Kirkpatrick in, in, in D.C., in Arlington actually, uh, in person, gave that narrative that it was a DARPA experiment, which, uh, I’m, I can convince you was otherwise. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:40:42] Well, gosh, we, we have not gotten the hook yet. So, since we’re all, you know, since we’re all here, and I think everybody in here is somewhat on the same page, or at least the same book, um, when we’re talking about the, the Tic Tac incident, there, there are two things that Commander Fravor said to me that, that have always just stuck in my mind. It’s the description of the two-circle dogfight, right? Which is a very, a very human thing for something to do. If, if this truly was from a different galaxy or something, the idea of, you know, of, of aft versus nose would not, like, it didn’t have a, a front or a back based on the morphology, right? And so, the two-circle dogfight is one. And then the other thing is the cap point, the teleporting to a spec- like, a, a very specific latitude and longitude, right? Of, of, of what this is. Both of those suggest, not necessarily, uh, I mean, again, interdimensional is difficult, and, and intergalactic is difficult, and our own technology is also difficult. But those things, they, they, they muddy the waters for me, not necessarily in discounting the entire thing, but being inconvenient, inconvenient aspects of that story that don’t necessarily line up with even the idea of interdimensional, or even the idea of, of off-world technology. Have you all grappled with why? Like, why a two-circle dogfight? Why this very specific cap point? [Visual, 2:42:15] A man in a blue suit walks past the stage from right to left. [Tim Gallaudet, 2:42:23] Well, obviously we see intelligent control, and, and some degree of consciousness in, in the, involved. And, and, and obviously they, the cap point is some kind of non-local information transfer from the pilots to this phenomena. I, I can’t explain that. There are many people who are grappling with this issue, um, in different circles, like Diane Hennacy Powell, who is, uh, you can look her up. She’s a, a researcher on, on telepathy, of all things. So consciousness is, is the area of studies I think this is invoking. [Visual, 2:43:07] A man in a dark suit walks across the front of the stage from right to left. [Marik von Rennenkampff, 2:43:07] I mean, we’re really going in the weeds here, but the Tic Tac encounter is, is interesting, and, and I still have, you know, a 5, 10% kind of, uh, thought that this might be our tech because Commander Fravor and Alex Dietrich, Lieutenant Dietrich - Lieutenant Dietrich, I, I think she’s a lieutenant, um - they recall observing in the video, the higher quality video that was recorded after their incident, they, they recall seeing what they describe as little Pitot tubes, right? Which, which generally is, is a measurement instrument that we humans use to measure speed, uh, you know, air, uh, it’s a sensor system that allows us to know about the environment, the aircraft’s environment. That’s the only thing that was kind of bizarre about that. And, you know, in recreations you can see it, and even in the video, if you, you play around with it a little bit, you can actually see those little protrusions. Um, it’s perplexing. I don’t know. I don’t know what that means. But I think to your point, the, the cap point showing up there, uh, and then engaging in some kind of, you know, that, that two-circle dogfight, truly interesting, and I don’t know what to make of it. I… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:44:13] The, the thing that I take from it is, it’s those inconveniences that, that to me make it all ring more true. It, it’s not just a clean story, it’s, ‘Uh, but there’s this one thing,’ or ‘There is, few things that don’t necessarily fit with what your preconceived conception of, of this could be.’ Um, and yeah, that’s, uh, thank you. We have not got the, the time, the timer here yet, and we could go on with all of these stories. I was, I was saving you for, for last on the, the case that brought you into this fold. Tell us how it started. [Christopher Mellon, 2:44:47] You mean the Tic Tac case? [Gadi Schwartz, 2:44:48] No, I’m, I’m talking about whatever it was that forced you to take this, and, and it might be the Tic Tac case, but what, and how did it happen, and where here in Washington, D.C. did it go down, and what did it look like? [Christopher Mellon, 2:45:00] So, uh, I was, uh, doing some, uh, uh, unpaid consulting, and, for, for Navy Intelligence, and, met Lue Elizondo. And, Lue apprised me of these videos, and others, a number of others, a number of which have not been released, and we’re still trying to get them released, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be. And, uh, I, I just couldn’t believe that nobody was doing anything about this, and nobody was, uh, taking action. Uh, normally, for example, if we have Russian Bear bombers coming across the, uh, Bering Strait or something, uh, you know, we react, message goes up to National Military Command Center, people are all over it. And this stuff was happening, and it wasn’t being reported out through, through intelligence channels, etc. So, um, I happened to know two people that were close to General Mattis, um, someone in the White House, and, uh, someone on his staff. And, uh, we arranged for, for them to get briefings, uh, by some of the same Navy pilots. And, uh, it, it still became obvious after several months of, of trying, that we were not going to be able to get anybody in the, uh, the five-sided nut house to take action. [Christopher Mellon, 2:46:17] So, uh, at that point, we faced a choice between doing nothing and walking away, or going and breaking the, uh, fire alarm box, and going to the press, and going to Congress. And, it was just unacceptable to leave this situation unaddressed, to, to my mind. I mean, somebody is accessing, somebody is, has got a technology that we don’t have, and they’re clearly, uh, posing a potential risk to the fleet, and to other assets. And, it was just unacceptable to, to allow that to continue, and not, not do whatever we could to try to, uh, uh, bring some attention to that problem. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:46:59] That, that, I mean, this is the origin story that has not been told yet, uh, in, in the detail that I’ve always wanted it to be told in. [Christopher Mellon, 2:47:08] So, I actually, uh, contacted several different outlets to try to get some competition going among them. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:47:13] Not me. [Christopher Mellon, 2:47:14] No. Didn’t know you then. Yeah. Didn’t know you then. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:47:18] I was too, yeah, I was too early on my, my time. [Christopher Mellon, 2:47:20] And, uh, eventually, uh, the New York Times, uh, Helene Cooper and Leslie Kean… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:47:25] And Leslie’s somewhere… [Christopher Mellon, 2:47:26] and their editors agreed to, uh, run the story. And, uh, uh, and then, after that, actually Kirk is the person I called in Congress. Um, because the committees weren’t reacting the way I thought they would. I thought when we got this in the newspaper, front page of the New York Times, we’re done. But it didn’t turn out that way. So, uh, we came down to the Hill. I talked to Kirk, and he set up a meeting. And then that led to bringing in some of the Navy people who were, uh, very impressive to the Senators, had, uh, tremendous credibility, and that’s when we started to get traction. [Christopher Mellon, 2:48:08] people like Ryan Graves, who is here, uh, as well as Commander Fravor. [Visual, 2:48:16] Panel members point toward the audience as they applaud. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:48:21] It, it’s so phenomenal. It’s, it, it is truly something. Anybody that is in this room, to have everyone in this room of all rooms, uh, it is, it is a… [Christopher Mellon, 2:48:31] invited for the guillotine and didn’t come. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:48:34] I don’t know if you ever foresaw this. I think that you, you obviously hoped for something, but, uh, uh… [Christopher Mellon, 2:48:39] This has surpassed my expectations. When we started on this voyage, I thought, you know, the opposition, the, just the intensity of the stigma was so great, and the hostility was so great, it was, it was hard to be truly optimistic. But we hoped that, that we might start a little fire, and, uh, and here it is. It’s starting to, to rage now. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:49:01] If the stigma is behind us, what do you think happens next? [Christopher Mellon, 2:49:06] Uh, I think we’re going to see continued progress in the months ahead with more data being released from the Executive Branch. The quality will vary… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:49:14] Manage our expectations here, because that’s, that’s it. Task force coming. [Christopher Mellon, 2:49:18] Yeah. So, I would say, hang on. Um, I think there’s going to be more, I know there’s going to be more efforts to get the President to apply more pressure, to get more information out. And, uh, I, I think, you know, our science panel will, um, generate pressure on the inside to provide more data. Um, and so, I’m optimistic, but I would urge people to, to bear in mind that, uh, you know, people want, ‘I want it tomorrow.’ You know, that’s sort of our American culture, ‘I want it,’ you know, ‘don’t give me excuses, just show me the video of the aliens tomorrow.’ Um, I don’t predict that’s going to happen tomorrow. Um, I predict a little bit of patience is going to be required, but I think we’re, we’re on… [Visual, 2:50:00] Five panelists seated at a table on stage with a Disclosure Foundation logo in the top-left corner. [Chris Mellon, 2:50:00] …in the right path. And I think more information will be coming out, and I, I’m hopeful, I’m— I’m optimistic over the long term, but I don’t know, is that a year, is that two years, is that three years? I don’t know. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:50:11] This is a very important question. I think, I think, I would argue this is the most important question of this panel. Is there something that you fear could totally derail the disclosure that we’ve seen so far? [Chris Mellon, 2:50:28] Uh, I’m not losing sleep over that. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:50:31] Okay. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:50:32] How about you, Admiral? [Tim Gallaudet, 2:50:34] I agree with Chris. I think there’s too much momentum right now in the, in the public and private sector, and at universities, as I mentioned. I, I think it’s unstoppable. And by the way, those are all constituents, so, if not this administration, the next administration or the next, they’re going to be behind what we’re calling for today. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:50:53] And we’ve seen, you know, the efforts and, and how bipartisan it appears. Mark, do you, do you agree or do you think that there is something out there that, that could potentially derail this? [Speaker 1, 2:51:04] Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think the toothpaste is going back in the tube. Um, I think, I think the, the momentum, the critical mass is, is there. So I, I agree with Chris and Tim. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:51:12] Karl? [Unidentified panelist, 2:51:13] Yeah, I am, uh, hopeful in the way that, uh, my colleagues here are. Um, at the same time, the history of this is, we were talking about this, uh, over dinner last night, is, you know, it’s, it’s, it has been cyclical. Like, you, you reach a, a certain, um, apex of interest and attention, and then it, uh, it, it, the government sort of hunkers down and hangs in there, and then it, it’s kind of recedes from public, uh, consciousness, and, uh, and then you, you wait again. I, I, I think that we’re not in that situation this time. I think that it’s going to continue to build, and, uh, and lead to, uh, success. But I am mindful of, of the history here, and we can’t take it for granted that it’s going to just keep going. People have to really continue to work, work, work. Um… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:52:10] Yeah, I, I mean, and, and again, I hate to be the, the one on this side of the table that, that does have a fear, but my fear is the shrug. That shrug is very, very powerful, and the American people, as you said, they want answers today, yesterday, tomorrow, especially for something that happened, you know, half a century ago or, or, or beyond. Uh, and so that, that shrug is a major concern. How do you go about continuing to, to, to keep people’s eye on, on what’s happening without, uh, without actually being able to deliver a definitive answer as to what this is? [Speaker 1, 2:52:48] I’ll quickly just jump in on, on Karl’s comment about the history of this, and he’s absolutely right, there, there is reason to be pessimistic. But at the end of the day, over the last 80 years, the government never officially acknowledged any kind of anomaly. Now, those red orb incidents are out there. That is out in the ether, that’s out in the open, that has been disclosed. And I don’t think there’s any coming back from that. That’s the fundamental difference, right? There is more data, there is more out there now, um, whereas in the past, again, this was denial, ridicule, obstruction, obfuscation. [Unidentified panelist, 2:53:20] Well, the, you know, the, the NHI, uh, whoever is coming here gets a vote too. And, and, and, and… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:53:29] Let’s hope they, yeah, yeah, let’s hope they’re listening. [Unidentified panelist, 2:53:31] And in what they, in how they behave and how they, how they interact with us, and you know, uh, it seems like the pace of this is, uh, is, is sort of picking up. And, uh, so, um, you know, that, that can, that can be a source of disclosure right there, is, uh, is what, is what they decide to do. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:53:53] Well, they, they let our mics work this entire panel, so, sounds like they’re with us. [laughter] I, I think we’ve gone over all our time, so, uh, yeah… [Visual, 2:54:04] Camera pans to Jordan Flowers standing at a podium next to the panel table. [Jordan Flowers, 2:54:04] No, we’re good. Thank you so much. Um, we have a few more minutes until, uh, Senator Rounds gets here, and, uh, I, I’ll selfishly butt in for a second. I, I think one of the things that we’re doing to try and answer that question, um, okay, we know that with these releases, there’s over, there’s 1.5 billion views on the aaro.mil/ufo site, right? That, that increases the political capital for this topic dramatically. Another thing that increases that is like pulling work, where we’re demonstrating that this is, uh, bipartisan, bicameral, uh, believers, non-believers. People have a deep intuition that they’re not being told the truth, and they want transparency. I truly believe in Washington you could run as a single pla— a single-issue platform of transparency and get elected. Like, people do not want to be lied to anymore, and that’s what our polling data reflects. So in terms of like the momentum that we have, it’s not just information and releases, it’s the, it’s the push and the pull. It’s the, it’s the push from the public in terms of political capital, and it’s the pull from, uh, the executive branch and having presidential will behind this, and it really, the momentum certainly does not seem to be, uh, it is accelerating and not decelerating. [Gadi Schwartz, 2:55:21] Let’s hope it continues. Thank you guys so very much. [Jordan Flowers, 2:55:23] Indeed. Um, thank you so much for, the other point before, since we do have I think a few minutes, um… [Gadi Schwartz, 2:55:31] Oh, Senator Rounds is here. [Jordan Flowers, 2:55:32] Oh, Senator Rounds is here? Excellent. Okay, well let’s, uh, let’s move on. Thank you so much again to the panel here. Thank you to Gadi Schwartz from NBC. [Visual, 2:55:36] Panelists stand up and shake hands as the audience applauds. [Visual, 2:56:00] Slide card reading “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY. Thank you for watching. The program will resume momentarily.” [Visual, 2:56:05] Live stream resumes with Jordan Flowers standing at the podium. [Jordan Flowers, 2:56:05] All right. Well, as they say, you don’t want to be, uh, the last thing, uh, standing in the way before lunch unless you’re Senator Mike Rounds. [laughter] Uh, so today, um, the Disclosure Foundation is honored to recognize a member of the United States Senate who has approached UAP transparency the way that oversight should work: methodically, seriously, and without grandstanding. Senator Mike Rounds has been a steady, incredible voice on this issue, using his position to ask hard questions of the intelligence community and hold the right people accountable behind closed doors and in open sessions alike. In a debate that has never lacked noise, Senator Rounds has provided something near, something rarer: rigor. His commitment to getting the facts right has made him an indispensable part of the legislative push for disclosure. The Disclosure Award exists to honor those who stand by this mission, who ask the, uh, ask the hard question and believe the truth is worth fighting for. Please join me in welcoming Senator Mike Rounds. [Visual, 2:57:04] Senator Mike Rounds walks onto the stage to accept the award. An on-screen graphic displays “Mike Rounds, U.S. Senator”. [Jordan Flowers, 2:57:09] Thank you so much. So appreciate you. Value everything you do. [Mike Rounds, 2:57:13] I’ll put this up here for you. [Jordan Flowers, 2:57:15] Oh, that’s awesome. Thank you. [Mike Rounds, 2:57:17] Thank you, and look, I, I understand that I am the last thing standing between you and lunch, and so I will be brief. But I do appreciate the opportunity just to visit with you for, for just a few minutes. Um, for a number of years, I’ve been concerned about congressional oversight of matters related to unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAPs. I believe Congress has the responsibility to exercise its oversight with an eye towards accountability by the executive branch. This impacts our national security, our fiscal, and our fiscal responsibility. Most importantly, we must make sure our citizens are aware of the government programs concerning UAP, but within the constraints of necessarily classified information. This concern is a bipartisan concern. I’ve co-sponsored legislation with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer designed to significantly increase executive branch disclosure and transparency concerning UAP-related matters. Since 2023 we’ve sought enactment of the UAP Disclosure Act in the National Defense Authorization Act, or the NDAA. This week, Leader Schumer and I will again offer this vital legislation as an amendment to this year’s NDAA, and we hope to finally bring it over the finish line. [Visual, 2:58:48] Wide shot of the hall showing the audience. [Mike Rounds, 2:58:52] During my 11 years as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and over the last two and a half years as a member for the Select Committee on Intelligence, I’ve become increasingly aware of silos that adversely affect information sharing, coordinated action, and, as a result, good national security policy suffers. These silos do not only exist between national security agencies and between elements of the intelligence community. They also exist between congressional committees with jurisdiction for national security. As one of the few members of the Senate who sits on both the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, I am concerned about the silo between these two committees, which can create all kinds of problems. One of these is preventing proper congressional oversight of UAP initiatives. I will continue to work with my colleagues to overcome this interagency and inter-committee issue that can really get in the way of proper UAP… [Visual, 3:00:00] Mike Rounds stands at a podium in the Kennedy Caucus Room, with the Disclosure Foundation logo in the top-left corner. [Mike Rounds, 3:00:00] UAP oversight. One aspect, uh, of required congressional oversight is making sure that we are taking a science-driven approach to UAPs. We need to make that an executive branch priority as well. Now, I will close this discussion, um, of the UAP Disclosure Act. I, I want to talk about it for just a little bit. The measure is directly modeled on the legislation Congress passed in the 1990s to set up a process to declassify and release the records in the federal government’s possession relating to the Kennedy assassination. 30 years later, some records are still withheld, but overall, the process has been deemed successful. While the measure was included in the Senate-passed NDAA in 2024, it was unfortunately dropped from the final version of the bill that was negotiated with the House, who opposed our amendment. We were able to establish a UAP records collection in the National Archives, where all records from all parts of the federal government are to be retained. However, we dropped the creation of a records review board composed of eminent experts, at, rec, eminent expert citizens with clearances, nominated by the president and Senate confirmed. This board would have overseen the record review and declassification process to include identification of any conscious effort by an administration to withhold appropriate information from Congress or the public. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make the review board a provision of law. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to remember that UAP transparency is a marathon and not a sprint. It took many decades to result in the status quo of overclassification, and it will likely take time to find the right balance between protecting our national security and giving the public information which they have a right to know. Once again, thank you for being here today and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. We hope you have an excellent discussion for the rest of the day and enjoy your lunch. Thank you. [Visual, 3:02:28] Mike Rounds steps away from the podium as the audience applauds; in the background, a TV monitor displays “Billy Cox / Moderator”. [Jordan Flowers, 3:03:01] So, just so everyone knows, we’re going to reconvene at 1:00 PM. I should have said 12:50, uh, but sorry, the… let me put it this way: the science panel will begin at 1:00 PM. So, please be back prior to that. Uh, we are starting promptly at 1:00 PM. Thank you. [Visual, 3:03:07] Jordan Flowers is shown at the podium announcing the upcoming science panel. [Visual, 3:03:26] A title screen appears: “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY”, dated June 25, 2026. [Visual, 3:10:00] A slide reads “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” with Disclosure Project branding. [Visual, 3:20:00] Title card reading “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” [Visual, 3:30:00] Blue slide reading “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” with contact details for the Collaborative for UFO/UAP Information. [Visual, 3:40:00] Title slide reading “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” for Seminary Ridge Museum Plenary Session 01. [Visual, 3:50:00] Blue slide with text “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” [Jordan, 3:52:25] All right, it’s 1:00. Time to get started. [Jordan, 3:52:32] Ah, everyone, please stop talking and sit down. [Visual, 3:52:44] Camera cuts to the conference room showing the stage, podium, panel table, and audience seating. [Jordan, 3:52:48] Thanks, everyone. Uh, so our next panel, um, is on Science and Investigation: From Anecdote to Instrument Data. Uh, moderating this panel is Kristen Fisher, Emmy Award-winning space journalist, founder of the Endless Void Studios, former space and defense correspondent for CNN. [Visual, 3:53:00] Close-up of Jordan at the podium. [Jordan, 3:53:08] We also have Hal Puthoff, President, CEO, Earthtech International, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, advisory board member of the Disclosure Foundation. And then Professor Avi Loeb, he’s the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University. He’s an advisory board member of the Disclosure Foundation as well. And we are delighted to have you all today. Kristen, thank you so much for agreeing to moderate this panel, and I hand things over to you. [Kristen Fisher, 3:53:36] Thank you so much for having me, Jordan. I’m truly honored… [Jordan, 3:53:38] Oh, and everyone, please, uh, push the button to talk, and we have gotten, uh, some polite feedback, uh, online that it’s been difficult for people to hear. So, please lean in and speak directly into the mic. Thank you. [Visual, 3:53:44] Room view of the stage as Jordan speaks at the podium. [Kristen Fisher, 3:53:55] We can figure this out, right? There we go. Jordan, thank you so much for having me. I am truly honored to moderate this panel with two such distinguished panelists. And Jordan and the whole Disclosure Foundation, I mean, you guys did a fantastic job of picking panelists that are incredibly timely and relevant, because, uh, Professor Loeb over here, just two weeks ago, was named to the government’s new UAP Science Advisory Council. And Avi, I understand that you have a brief presentation that you want to give. So, why don’t you go ahead, get behind the podium. What do you say, about five minutes? Five, can we get through it in five minutes? Okay. You’ll, if you go a little over, that’s all right. Okay. Take it away, Avi. [Visual, 3:54:26] Close-up of Kristen Fisher, Hal Puthoff, and Avi Loeb at the panel table. [Visual, 3:54:37] Avi Loeb stands up and walks to the podium. [Visual, 3:54:44] Wide shot of Avi Loeb walking to the podium. [Kristen Fisher, 3:54:45] And then we’ll get into the Q and A. [Avi Loeb, 3:54:47] So, I’ll just say, uh, a few general words, um. So, let me start with the executive summary. It’s all about evidence. [Visual, 3:54:54] Close-up of Avi Loeb at the podium. [Avi Loeb, 3:54:58] Uh, if UAP are real objects, uh, we should be able to figure them out with better data. And that’s what we should do. Now, how often does the Director of National Intelligence, the White House, the FBI, the intelligence community ask scientists to help them? Not very often. And they sort of approached, uh, me to establish this Science Council, uh, for, um, the science of unidentified anomalous phenomena, presumably because they cannot figure out what these objects are. And, uh, as of a couple of days ago, we submitted, uh, a request for more than 50 items, uh, of information that we would like, uh, to get from, uh, uh, those organizations, and hopefully they’ll deliver, because the quality of the work of this council depends on the data that is shared with us. We will make the best lemonade out of the lemons that we get. Um, and the cooperation with the government is quite, uh, remarkable. Um, I think now we can work together, uh, and that’s thanks to President Trump’s, uh, directive. Um, and, uh, one thing that has to be made clear is that science is not about finding signals, as much as, uh, it sounds, uh, like what everyone is looking for. Um, it’s about distinguishing signals from noise. There are lots of sources of noise. And we need to make sure that these objects, first of all, are real, and secondly, cannot be explained away by known phenomena. And there are two possibilities. If these objects are technological, either they are human-made or not human-made. These are the two possibilities. If you take the down-to-earth approach and say they are human-made, that’s a serious matter because we are dealing with objects that we don’t understand and potentially are made by adversarial nations. So, this subject needs to get a higher priority by the government. We have to figure out what these objects are. We shot down the Chinese spy balloon, there may be many drones produced by adversarial nations spying on the US on strategic assets, and in that case, we are dealing with a serious matter. So, definitely more, uh, research, better sensors, better AI, uh, software to figure these things out need to be employed, and the US government needs to pay a lot of attention to that. And I don’t feel that my time as a scientist will be wasted, because, in the very least, we will help the Pentagon accomplish their mission. Right? So, and once we have good enough data, it will become clear whether we are dealing with human-made objects or not human-made objects. This is not a philosophical question. It’s not a religious question. It’s a question that can be addressed with state-of-the-art sensors and analysis tools. And I should say that, uh, a lot of people are upset because the government didn’t deliver information in the past, but if you look closely at history, bureaucrats never get punished for cosmic mistakes. When the Vatican admitted in 1992 that Galileo Galilei was right, nobody requested to put the Pope in jail, or any other bureaucrat in the Vatican because they lied to the public for centuries. And they did it knowingly. And not only that, when they had a whistleblower saying, “It looks like the Earth is moving around the Sun,” they put him in house arrest. Today they would have canceled him on social media. So, what was surprising to me is that on June 12th, that’s the day when Steven Spielberg released his film Disclosure Day, on the same day there was a real disclosure by the US government. The most interesting report in that disclosure came from John Kosloski, Dr. John Kosloski, the director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, talking about an event that lasted two days. [Visual, 4:00:00] Avi Loeb standing at a podium with a “Disclosure Foundation” logo in the top-left corner. [Avi Loeb, 4:00:00] …in October 2023, relatively recently, and 40% of the phenomena in that event were not resolved. [Avi Loeb, 4:00:12] And so, you know, there are two basic questions. One is: is there a “there” there? Okay, is there something, really, that we are not understanding? And the answer, I think, is yes, because apparently the Pentagon cannot figure it out and they are sure that it’s real. [Avi Loeb, 4:00:34] And if so, what is it? Is it human-made or not human-made? [Avi Loeb, 4:00:40] And the, the, most important thing, I think, is that we should keep our eyes on the orbs, not on the audience. What do I mean by the audience? I mean social media where people express opinions, they tell stories, they are 100% confident of one interpretation or another. [Avi Loeb, 4:01:06] These are the people on the bench, but the people in the field need to collect data and evidence so that it will become clear. And the people in the field need to put their eyes on the orbs, study them, figure them out, come back with answers. [Avi Loeb, 4:01:25] The council that I’m leading will look at unclassified data. We will do transparent work. We will share our findings with the public, because everyone deserves to know whether we are alone or not. [Avi Loeb, 4:01:42] Because if we have a neighbor, we should know about it. There is no point in hiding it, and, and there is no point denying it. The neighbor will not go away for the same reason that the Earth moves, moved around the Sun 4.5 billion times before the Vatican even existed. [Avi Loeb, 4:02:01] And by the way, the Earth did not exist in the first two-thirds of cosmic history, so it was ridiculous to even think that the Earth is at the center because it didn’t exist throughout most of cosmic history. [Avi Loeb, 4:02:15] So if we have a neighbor, it will not depend on what people say on social media. And for us to find it, we need to collect data, analyze it so that everyone will be on the same page. [Avi Loeb, 4:02:30] And that’s the goal of this council. So, um, I’ll just say a, a few, uh, brief words about, obviously the, the context is Enrico Fermi’s question, where is everybody? [Avi Loeb, 4:02:45] And, uh, the possible answer is right here, we just didn’t use instruments. [Avi Loeb, 4:02:53] And, uh, you know, potentially if we are dealing with phenomena that we are not familiar with, it may be new physics. We will talk about that. But you have to, uh, appreciate that whenever new physics was found, it was not a violation of the physics that we know. [Avi Loeb, 4:03:12] When Einstein came up with theory of gravity, he didn’t say Newton was wrong. Newton’s gravity applies to particular circumstances, and in those circumstances it was entirely right, and Einstein just extended the theory of gravity to other circumstances. [Avi Loeb, 4:03:30] So when people say, “Oh, the speed of light is not a limit,” or, uh, you know, “there are wormholes or extra dimensions,” these are things we don’t know about, or we can go back in time, or all kinds of ideas that people bring, we cannot go against the known laws of physics. We can just add additional phenomena that we are not familiar with. So that’s important to keep in mind. [Avi Loeb, 4:03:54] I mean, Steven Spielberg has the artistic freedom to give red meat to the audience by imagining things. That’s completely legitimate for him to have a nice, uh, movie, but in reality, and by the way, reality is more imaginative than scriptwriters in Hollywood. [Avi Loeb, 4:04:12] And, uh, testimony to that is that when I met Steven Spielberg a decade ago, he said, “Avi, when you find evidence for aliens, let me be the first to know about it,” because he appreciates reality is more interesting than science fiction. [Avi Loeb, 4:04:29] And so, the hope of the, uh, council is, and, and we have altogether 15 members by now, is, uh, to ask the government for more data, more information, uh, encourage them to release things that we know about, that were not released so far. And as I mentioned, we submitted a request for that matter of more than 50 items. [Avi Loeb, 4:04:54] And, uh, we have expertise, uh, in physics within this council, in physics, um, oceanography, um, uh, material science, but also psychology because we are dealing with humans interacting with the phenomena, and there is also an aspect of communicating it to the public. [Avi Loeb, 4:05:20] So we have, uh, an exceptional team. I’m, I’m really, I feel, um, grateful to all the members that work together as a team. And my hope, I mean, the real, um, uh, test whether, you know, uh, we are, uh, doing our job is that we will come up with a clearer understanding of UAP so everyone would know what we are talking about. It will not be a speculative notion, there would be clear-cut evidence, and we’ll be able to move forward. [Avi Loeb, 4:05:58] And as I said, if it turns out to be that all technological objects are human-made, so be it, but we improved national security in the process of figuring them out because right now, you know, uh, if these are human-made then definitely someone else is, uh, getting information on strategic assets within the US that we are not aware of. [Avi Loeb, 4:06:24] And so, uh, my hope is that, thanks to the advice we provide to the US government, we work together, that we’ll get to a better understanding of these phenomena, and, of course, the cream on top will be, uh, the biggest scientific discovery ever made if we end up finding even one object out of a million. [Avi Loeb, 4:06:47] Because it’s a mixed bag, it’s surely a mixed bag, but even if one in a million happens to be not human-made, uh, we will, it will bring humanity to a better place, um, and will change, uh, the way we think about our future because, uh, I think what one thing that is missing right now is a sense of humility, um, and if we realize that there is a smarter kid on the block, that we are not at the top of the food chain, cosmologically speaking, uh, we will recalculate our place in the universe. [Avi Loeb, 4:07:29] And, uh, of course, the other thing it will do is to, uh, educate us about new science, new technology, and, uh, encourage us to explore space, change our priorities instead of engaging in conflicts worldwide. And I, I am sure that many of you are frustrated with everything happening around the world, uh, perhaps such a knock on the door by a neighbor, uh, will bring humanity to its senses. [Avi Loeb, 4:07:56] And, because we will realize that, uh, there is much more real estate out there and that the universe is much larger than the small rock that we were born on. And going to another rock is not very visionary, just going to Mars or the Moon because they happen to be nearby. That’s not real vision that we can pursue as, as the human species. It’s actually becoming interstellar. Thank you. [Visual, 4:08:24] Avi Loeb finishes his speech, walks away from the podium, and the audience applauds. [Visual, 4:08:28] Wide shot of the conference room showing the panel table on stage and the audience applauding. [Speaker 1, 4:08:39] All right, well thank you very much, Professor Loeb. Uh, let’s kick this, this panel off by asking, you know, Avi, you’re the, you’re the chairman of this new UAP council, why, why not have somebody like Dr. Hal Puthoff on it? [Visual, 4:08:41] Close-up of the panel seated at the table: female moderator (Speaker 1), Dr. Hal Puthoff, and Avi Loeb. [Avi Loeb, 4:08:56] The first group of people that I thought about is actually a few, uh, young nerds. [Speaker 1, 4:09:06] Some young nerds. [Visual, 4:09:07] The panel members laugh, and the camera cuts to the audience laughing. [Avi Loeb, 4:09:10] Now, and the reason, I mean, the reason is, I, I would like to hear the views of people without any baggage, without any knowledge of history, but also these young people, young nerds, um, know how to use the latest tools of AI, and they are very technologically savvy. So that was, in terms of the composition of the team, um, that was my first priority to get a few of those. And then, um, people with different expertise. We also needed, um, communication officer, we needed people with expertise in physics, and, but, um, I tried to get people who do not have a clear, um, absolute opinion about the nature of UAP. And, um, my hope is that, uh, this will… [Visual, 4:10:00] Disclosure Foundation logo in the top-left corner. Three panelists (Kristin Fisher, Hal Puthoff, and Avi Loeb) are seated at a table on a stage in front of a red curtain. [Avi Loeb, 4:10:00] bring us to a clear understanding. I even selected a skeptic, um, that I completely disagree with and I have a bet, that by 2030 we will know, um, about artifacts that are extraterrestrial in origin, and I have a bet with that skeptic, and the reason I brought him in is because if he ends up being convinced, um, that I’m right, that will demonstrate that we have evidence beyond any reasonable doubt. And, um, that’s the best approach. It’s not very common these days to be, to bring people with different opinions to the same panel, but, um, I thought it’s really essential to have someone like that, because it will also cultivate, uh, recognition from the community of skeptics. Um, and, um, all together, you know, I think it’s just like a detective story. We just have to figure it out. But I didn’t want, I didn’t go for the historic figures that established the field like Hal, who deserves a lot of credit for bringing this forward and, um, just because I want to have, um, a completely, um, [Hal Puthoff, 4:11:15] Fresh approach. [Avi Loeb, 4:11:16] Fresh approach, exactly. [Kristin Fisher, 4:11:18] So, Hal, do you take any offense to not being one of Avi’s young nerds? You, you already according to Avi formed a, an opinion on the topic, so what is your opinion if you can just state it plainly for everybody in the room, and what advice do you have for Avi as he forms this new council? [Hal Puthoff, 4:11:39] Well, first of all, I totally am behind exactly the approach that Avi is taking. Data, data, data, analyze, analyze, analyze. Fresh minds brought to the, uh, issue that don’t have the long history that I happen to have, uh, being involved in the issue. So I think the set up of that organization and with Avi’s leadership of it is exactly what the field needs at this point. Now of course I come having been Chief Science Advisor for the DIA’s, uh, AAWSAP program, uh, working in highly classified levels, you know, I come in with a wholly different viewpoint. And actually there’s a specific issue I want to raise that I’m sure that he and his panel will address, and that is, as those of us on the AAWSAP program for DIA interacted with, uh, various organizations, defense intelligence organizations, also, uh, aerospace contractors and so on, what we found was that what was killing this area, and preventing things from moving forward, was the unbelievable amount of stovepiping and fiefdoms and lack of cross-correlation. So you’d have people sitting at desks in some of these aerospace corporations who couldn’t even talk to the person in the next desk about what they were doing. Well, I have, I have what I consider the best example of all, and that is, uh, Edward Teller, who was father of the H-bomb. He was part of the Manhattan Project, of course, and you would think well if anyone were really into security it would be, it would be Edward Teller. But after, you know, that program, uh, became revealed and so on, he gave a speech. And in his speech he said, ‘You know, we had the maximum security you could possibly have, the maximum kind of stovepiping and fiefdoms and separations in the Manhattan Project, and we worked our way toward the atomic bomb, but basically Russia worked its way up the ladder at about the same rate we did.’ On the other hand, in electronics and circuitry and that kind of stuff, we didn’t, we didn’t classify anything. And we took off like a rocket and left Russia in the dust. So in fact the truth of the matter is even if you’re worried about security, I think we have a better chance at dealing with the security that we do need to be conscious of by having much more cross-correlation. And so that’s, that’s, uh, a big reason that I’m basically involved in the whole idea of, of disclosure. And I know that from having, uh, talked to people in various spots, my god, if only those two people would talk together, you know, we would move ahead a lot faster. So that’s, so the idea of having transparency and a lot of people working together and sharing ideas and so on, even from the standpoint of national security, that’s, that’s going to be tantamount if we’re, if we’re going to move forward. Now, unfortunately, from our standpoint, the American standpoint, our two big potential adversaries, who are the Chinese and the Russians, they don’t have that problem. They just take their thousand engineers or whatever, throw them in a big camp and say, ‘Okay, figure this out.’ So the chances of harming our security by having such compartmentalization is actually something that I’m very concerned about. So anything that opens up this area, gets more cross-correlation, I think is unbelievably significant. [Kristin Fisher, 4:15:52] So you started by talking about data, data, data, and that’s what this panel is all about, science and data. Not the sexiest title on surface level, but, as everybody in this room knows, it’s absolutely critical to get this topic from just being anecdote into potentially proving some of the things that many of this, many of the people in this room have been talking about. And I love that we have the two of you up here because the two of you approach UAPs and this phenomena from two very different data sets. You have, uh, Avi, who of course works with, uh, or works from publicly observable data with the Galileo Project, and then Hal, of course, has decades of access to classified data. And so, Hal, I’m wondering if you can explain what do you think is the single most important category of classified data that scientists like Avi still don’t have access to? [Hal Puthoff, 4:16:54] Well, as a, as a physicist and a scientist, of course, and I’m, in my own little stovepipe here, but anyway, um, when we got together several of the, uh, scientists to try to figure out what could we discern about the technology, well, we looked at all kinds of different kinds of things, uh, you know, negative matter, uh, you know, whatever. But basically, our efforts came down to kind of a certain area, which is basically, uh, engineering general relativity. You know, all of our electronics that we’re using in this room and so on, they’re all products of Maxwell’s equations from the 1800s. Okay. Now it turns out that when we get, collect all the data about what the observations are for UAP phenomena, it generally falls into a category that it looks like, uh, that Einstein’s equations in general relativity have been engineered. Because if you make a list, fact, I did it myself, I took a piece of paper and I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to make a list on this side of the most weird things that have been reported about UAP phenomena.’ And for me, for my reasons, the weirder the better, because if somebody’s making up a BS story they want it to sound reasonable. So when they say, ‘Well, I got close to the craft and it changes its size,’ or, you know, whatever, uh, okay, I like that kind of data. And then we come over and look at general relativity equations, we say, ‘Well, if I could engineer general relativity, what would I expect to see?’ And if I, it turns out that I found, we found in our investigations that they seem to match up pretty well. So we have this hypothesis that space-time metric, as we call it, you know, properties of space, space-time are being engineered. So unfortunately, so okay, well if we understand that, you know, I mean we have our pilots telling us, ‘Oh my god, this stuff is way beyond our physics.’ Well, of course, to a physics nerd like myself, it’s not beyond our physics. If it’s alive, it’s physics. But we figured, okay, we understand the physics. The problem is we can’t do the engineering. We don’t know how to do the engineering. So anyway, but as a result of all those kind of studies, we have a long list of things that should be pursued in the academic approach. That is, we have aspects of what’s observed. For example, when people get, uh, kind of close to a UAP, they can get radiation sunburn, get a little too close, they get soft X-ray and even develop cancer and so on. Okay, well all that correlates with the idea that, for whatever reason, when these craft manipulate space and time, uh, they happen to get a blue shift in frequency as we say, the frequencies go up. Okay. So… [Visual, 4:20:00] Hal Puthoff, Avi Loeb, and a female host sit at a panel table with a Disclosure Foundation logo on screen. [Hal, 4:20:00] Well that sets up a scientific, that’s now a hypothesis. But what Avi Loeb’s people could do, for example, is okay, let’s build some cameras. They go out and look at the Planck blackbody spectrum of the heat and see if that spectrum has been shifted up into the blue and the soft x-rays and and so on. So we have a whole list of things that we can pass on. But somebody has to come up with funding to examine the physics of it. And so that’s exactly how I think that some of the observations in the classified programs that are just sitting idle on pieces of paper, even though the correlation looks pretty good, we need to pass that on to the academic community where people can say, “Okay, well I’ll grab this element of it and I can set up a certain kind of experiment to investigate it.” So that’s the big thing we need to do now, and that’s why those of us who have been involved inside the program are fighting so hard to push things out. And the truth of the matter is, fortunately, up till now the people in the legacy programs, so-call, have felt that they did not have the permission to be pushing things forward, because they want answers too, of course. But now that we have this new approach coming out of the White House, people behind the scenes who have always wanted to get more data out are now feel energized that they can do that, and it’s not going to be, it’s not going to ruin their careers or whatever. So I think that, thinking of the panel this morning as, “Well, it’s just going to rise up and then kind of fade away,” I think this time it’s not going to fade away because there are enough people on both sides of the dividing line who actually want to move forward. And now that we have a council like this that Avi Loeb is heading up with a lot of young nerds ready to attack the physics, we can give them a whole list of things that could be done that we think would probably be fruitful. So I see a great collaboration between the academic community and those who have been involved behind the scenes. [Visual, 4:21:52] Audience member raises a smartphone to record the panel. [Speaker 1, 4:22:15] So hopefully over the next few days, weeks, months, more of that information from legacy programs, classified information, things that you know will be making its way to Avi and the council. But, you know, Avi, you’ve been a big proponent of open source data for a long time. Of course classified data is important, but do you believe that there is stuff that the open source data can tell us that the classified information cannot? [Visual, 4:22:22] Camera angle changes to a view from the side showing the audience in the foreground. [Avi Loeb, 4:22:44] Definitely because when data is open source, it allows a lot of people to think about it, and it’s not just about a phenomena that is being described. Let’s say you say, “Well, it may be explained as a distortion of spacetime.” No, it’s not about that, because if it’s a distortion of spacetime, even if you imagine a faster-than-light Alcubierre drive moving through the atmosphere, it will generate a blast wave in the atmosphere. You can solve Einstein’s equations in the presence of the atmosphere, and the fact that you distorted spacetime will move the atmosphere around in such ways that there will be a fireball, and you would see the fireball. If you don’t see the fireball, it’s something else. And so, what the scientific engagement in an open source environment implies is that we can look for new signatures that will clarify to us what’s going on. It’s just like a detective going to a crime scene and trying to figure out what really happened. And we know, by the way, that in the courtroom, in the legal system, there were people testifying under oath, just like David Grusch, under oath, that someone has to die because they committed a crime. And then, when DNA tests came to the forefront, these people were exonerated. We are trying to look for the DNA test of the nature of UAPs. It may not be what people are talking about, even if they testify under oath. The way to figure out what really happened, or what really happens, is by collecting high-quality data, asking additional questions that will bring us closer to the truth. And as I said before, we should be brave, we should not always say, “I believe it’s this, and I don’t want to hear more about it,” because if it turns out not to be this, but something else, even if it turns out that these orbs are human-made by another nation, I would not feel that my time is wasted because I was helping the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, the FBI, the White House recognize a national security threat that they were blind to. And if they recognize it as an important task for me to help them with, we can figure it out. And if they put resources that will allow us to figure it out, just for the sake of national security, this is a down-to-earth, very realistic approach. If they are recognizing this as a worth-pursuing research, then if there is something that is not human-made, we will see it. It will be obvious. It will not be a matter of people arguing or commenting about on social media. It’s not up to those opinions, it’s up to what the evidence will guide us to. And so, you know, I think it’s really straightforward. We just need better evidence so that we can figure out what we’re dealing with. [Speaker 1, 4:25:56] And what would be, sort of the Holy Grail evidence? What is the, what would make you go from, I don’t know, to, oh this is definitely…? [Avi Loeb, 4:26:05] Okay, so it depends what, it depends what we’re dealing with, but imagine that we are visited by some non-human-made technology. Then I want to see a high-resolution image of it, maybe from a satellite, because they can resolve a few inches on the ground, right? And I want to see some materials. I can easily tell you, if someone gives me more than about a tenth of a gram of material, I can easily tell you if it came from outside the solar system. And when people talk about biological materials being in crash sites, first, I should, I should point out that it doesn’t need to be biology as we know it, because it could be synthetic biology. We are all familiar with AI being the next frontier in making systems that are more capable than the human brain. But in fact, the human brain operates on 20 watts, okay, whereas these AI systems require gigawatts. And the biggest advance that humanity will make in the future is not AI made of silicon chips, it’s actually creating something like the human brain that is based on chemistry. So when I was asked by a student in France a week ago, he said, “Oh, we haven’t seen self-replicating probes visit us here on Earth. That means that there is no other civilization more advanced than ours, because self-replicating probes can fill up the Milky Way galaxy.” And I said, “That’s not true. I interact with intelligent self-replicating probes every day. They are called humans.” And ultimately, out of synthetic biology, we might construct a thinking machine that is more capable than the human brain, and that would be the ultimate. So if we are visited by someone who had more than a hundred years since the discovery of quantum mechanics, let’s say a thousand years, a million years, a billion years, it’s possible that they sent astronauts or ambassadors that are made of synthetic biology, and that’s what we might find. It need not be robots with AI made of silicon chips. [Visual, 4:26:13] Camera cuts back to the front-facing shot of the panel. [Speaker 1, 4:28:31] We only have about 10 minutes left, so I want to make sure we get into some other topics before we run out of time. I’d like to start by asking you, Hal, to just talk a little bit about your evolution on the disclosure topic because, correct me if I’m wrong here, but at one point you recommended against disclosure. Now you are for it, I believe, to a certain extent without compromising national security. Do I have that right, and if so, what exactly changed your mind? [Visual, 4:29:06] Audience member raises a smartphone to record the panel. [Hal, 4:29:05] Well that, that is correct. I was part of a panel four decades ago, actually. And I was called in to be participate in this panel. And there were a lot of people from intelligence agencies and the military and so on. And we didn’t know why this panel was being formed. We were just said, you know, we had to come. And I said, “I don’t have enough time to do this.” And, “No, no, no, this will be the most important panel you’ve ever been on.” I said, “Oh, okay, fine, fine, fine.” So, in fact, when I showed up, they said, “Okay, here’s the issue. United States, Russia, and China have evidence of non-human intelligence technologies. And we’re thinking about presenting this to the general public. So what we need to do in this panel is to figure out what would be the consequences of that for the general… [Visual, 4:30:00] Panel discussion with Kristin Fisher (left), Hal Puthoff (center), and Avi Loeb (right) sitting on a stage behind a table with microphones in front of a red curtain. A “Disclosure Foundation” logo is in the top-left corner. [Hal Puthoff, 4:30:00] …tional economy. Well, we all initially started out saying, “Oh my god, this is just this really going to be great.” And so we made a long list. Actually end up we had something like 60 items on the list. Okay, it could affect the stock market, it could affect religious thought, it could affect, you know, whatever. And when we got down in the weeds, time we get down in the weeds, we’d say, “Okay, Corporation A was given materials by the government, but Corporation B wasn’t, so they’re going to sue the government and sue the corporations because they were left out of the loop and so on.” So anyway, we ended up with a bunch of numbers for all the different 60 element items, and we all came up with negative numbers. And so we decided in that panel, you know, that this just isn’t going to work. Part of it being that there’s no way to deal with it piece by piece, you’d have to announce all of it and handle everything at the same time, and realized that that was going to be an impossible task. But as time has gone on, and just seeing how thought, uh, has changed, and seeing how our technologies have changed and so on, I just, my viewpoint slowly changed and viewpoints of other people on the panel changed as well. [Kristin Fisher, 4:31:22] You say it slowly changed, but was there a moment? Was there a specific moment where or something that happened that made you think, “I’m I’m now for disclosure to the American public, to the world”? [Hal Puthoff, 4:31:35] The specific moment would be, um, being exposed to what the apparent reality was, that there really is something going on that most humans don’t know about, and just recognizing that that’s wrong. [Kristin Fisher, 4:31:53] And how much of that reality have you been able to share publicly? [Hal Puthoff, 4:31:58] Uh, very little of it. [Kristin Fisher, 4:32:01] And what would happen if you were to share some of that with just us in this room right here? [Visual, 4:32:08] The audience laughs and a person in the crowd holds up a smartphone to record. [Hal Puthoff, 4:32:12] Well, I could worry about going to jail. I could worry… Um, I mean what we what we need to do is we need to restructure our process, which, thank God for Chris Mellon and Lou Elizondo and others, we are doing that. That’s what we need to do, so that it becomes safe for quote, “potential whistleblowers” to come forth and and say more. That’s what it’s going to take. But that that is what it, I I think is the next giant step, and fortunately, I see a panel like this that Jordan Powers has put together is it’s just exactly what we need to move the ball over the goal line to where this isn’t going to go back into the into the ether. [Kristin Fisher, 4:33:00] Avi, what are you thinking over there, when you hear Hal talking about non-human intelligence over here and all that he’s seen? [Avi Loeb, 4:33:07] We don’t need the the U.S. government to tell us what’s in the sky. We can just look up. And so, that’s why I have been leading the Galileo Project for the past four years, and we have three observatories. We are monitoring millions of objects and using triangulation to figure out their distance, so that we can tell if they are lying outside the performance envelope of human-made technologies. So, my point is, just like in the story with Galileo and Copernicus, eventually, the truth comes out. Som- someone builds a spacecraft that looks at the Earth and sees that the Earth moves around the Sun, and not the other way around. So, uh, the government cannot hold a cosmic secret if, uh, so, and, uh, the reason I I’m engaged with government right now is because of the potential that we are dealing with adversarial nations, you know? So, it’s really the government business to make sure that we are not being spied on, uh, you know, that, uh, there aren’t a thousand rounds for every Chinese spy balloon that is being shot down. So, um, that’s a serious matter, and that has to be figured out. But, in the process of figuring it out, we might find something that is not human-made. So, we should all celebrate this moment where we cooperate, uh, thanks to President Trump’s directive, we cooperate with government agencies and can move forward. And it’s really a new a new time in this context. So, rather than be upset about or grudgy about what happened in the past, let’s celebrate the future. I think, uh, it might be much better the future. The future, uh, I mean, I’m always an optimist, because life is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy. And if you are not an optimist, you will never make it the future better than the past. [Kristin Fisher, 4:35:03] Hal, as Avi goes out and points his instruments up, be it telescopes, all of his sensors, uh, any advice for him on where he should look, where he should be pointing the telescopes? Any any clues, any hints that you can give us? I got to try, right? [Hal Puthoff, 4:35:21] Well, it’s it’s easy to say to to Avi because he does have an open mind. So, in fact, uh, the answers could be practically anywhere. I mean, I’ve I’ve written a paper on ultraterrestrials where I said, you know, who knows? You know, maybe there’s some ancient civilization hiding in the seabed that, you know, is is behind all this. No ETs from from outside or whatever. So so I think just keeping an open mind to deal with the data is the most important thing, and that’s the one thing I know that Avi and his group are are going to do. So that’s, you know, don’t don’t take out any hypothesis. Uh, we don’t know what the answer is yet, so just let the data lead us to the truth. And that’s, that’s, that’s what we… [Avi Loeb, 4:36:09] That’s, that’s extremely important. I have to to emphasize that most of the time in science, you are in a situation of uncertainty. What you find in textbooks are rare moments where people really converge on the answer. But, most of the time in science, things are uncertain. And as much as it sounds like an open mind is easy, it’s not easy at all. I get attacked from all directions. There are lots of arrows sent in my direction because people have their own opinions. And they want me to comply with their opinions. But, sorry, the only thing I’m willing to comply with is evidence. [Visual, 4:36:47] The audience applauds. [Kristin Fisher, 4:36:52] I got time for one more question. And since we are on Capitol Hill, what better time to talk about funding, right? Because none of this happens without money. And so, Avi, the Galileo Project is mostly funded by private donations. Hal, most of your research has been funded by, uh, defense and intelligence budgets over the years. Um, to the best of my knowledge, none of your major UAP efforts have been funded by entities like the National Science Foundation. So, what is it going to take to get some of those grant dollars—I believe it’s 9 billion a year in grants from the National Science Foundation—what is it going to take to get some of that money into the hands of what you all are doing? [Avi Loeb, 4:37:38] Well, that is relatively straightforward. Currently, the astronomy community is focu- is obsessed with looking for microbes. And willing to put more than 10 billion dollars to the search for the chemical fingerprints of microbes in the atmospheres of exoplanets. And I say that when you go on a blind date, you better aim high, not low. You better look for someone who is more intelligent than you are, than for the most mediocre dating partner that you can find easily on the first date. But, uh, so, it’s just a question of perspective. If the astronomy community were to decide, or to agree that we should allocate similar budgets to the search for mediocre dating partners in the form of microbes as to someone a partner that is more intelligent than we are. And by the way, the going for more intelligent makes a lot of sense because the public is cares so much about it and also, it will bring us to a better place. It will have a huge impact on humanity. So, you multiply a small probability times a huge impact, you realize this is something we should pursue. But right now, there is no funding. The other approach that I took was to have a public bet with Elon Musk. I said, “I’m willing to put 1% of my net worth against 1% of his net worth.” Which is now more than a trillion dollars? Uh, and we will check whether you, Elon Musk, were the most accomplished space entrepreneur since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. So far, he didn’t take the bet, but I’m I’m completely open to that. And, uh, that’s another source of funding that we could tap. [Kristin Fisher, 4:39:32] I love that idea. Elon, are you listening? [Hal Puthoff, 4:39:34] Another thing I would like to say in response to your question is that, in fact, there is some motion going forward. Uh, when Anna Brady was in charge of, uh, programs at the National Science Foundation, uh, she arranged for me and Charles Chase and from Lockheed and so on, to go in and talk to NSF leaders about how they should be more open to funding technologies… [Visual, 4:40:00] Panel with Hal Puthoff, Avi Loeb, and a female moderator. [Hal Puthoff, 4:40:00] …that would be associated with the UAP area. And we got a very positive response. So there are people out there that are, are, are pushing the straw in the right direction. Okay. [Speaker 1, 4:40:11] Well, Hal, Avi, we could go on all afternoon, but, uh, I think Jordan’ll, Jordan’ll kill us. So, uh, thank you all so much for being here. Avi, Hal, thank you so much for your time and expertise. It’s really been a pleasure. Thank you. [Visual, 4:40:30] Scene changes to a wide view of the audience as the panel leaves the stage. [Jordan Flowers, 4:40:52] Okay. So, my notes are: young nerds are getting mediocre dating partners. Did everybody catch that? Um, just kidding. Thank you so much. Uh, that was an awesome conversation. Um, so, the next talk that we have, uh, there’s a lot of discussion about what are the religious implications of disclosure. And joining us here today to discuss that is Dr. Carlos Eire, PhD of religion at Yale University, the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale, I should say. Uh, and we are really excited to learn about his perspective. And when I reached out to Carlos, uh, and said, talked about the potential here, and we expressed our mutual affection for Jeffrey Kripal as a person and for his work, um, and then we realized that we also live, uh, about a mile from each other. And Carlos, I promise, uh, you are still invited for Taco Tuesday at the Flowers household. So, uh, please welcome Dr. Carlos Eire. [Visual, 4:42:03] Carlos Eire walks to the podium and shakes hands with Jordan Flowers. [Carlos Eire, 4:42:15] Thank you, Jordan, and, um, thank you to the Disclosure Foundation for being so brave as to invite a, a humanities scholar to deal with, with this topic. And this is my first venture into this subject, so… Um, I’ll begin with a quote, uh, from Diana Pasulka, in her book, American Cosmic, uh, where she relates how she also as a scholar of religious studies went in search of evidence for downed alien aircraft. And she says, “In one sense, I feel as if I have been studying this phenomenon my whole life. But I didn’t call it UFO research. I called it religious studies.” And of course, religion, all religions, now I shouldn’t say all, I should be more careful, say 98%, all religions are all about encounters with non-human intelligence. And that is the foundation of religion, that there is more than is here, there are other beings, and so on. But, um, I also have a quote from Jeff Kripal at Rice University, from a paper he gave a couple of years ago titled, Biological Gods. And I’d like to celebrate once again the bravery of the Disclosure Foundation of having me here as a speaker. Jeff says, and he’s reporting about his own experiences as a scholar, “Of all the secret military projects and official committees formed, both in the US and in Europe, of which I am aware, not one of them has ever thought to hire a humanist. A historian, or an anthropologist, much less a scholar of religion, to study the baffling phenomenon. Not one.” Why? Well, and how did I get here? How did I get here? My entire career has been devoted to studying, in one way or another, how humans in a very specific time period in Western Europe interpreted the relationship between the material dimension and the spiritual dimension. So, after four decades of being very careful, I decided to publish a book on truly impossible miracles. Miracles associated with mystical ecstasy. What, um, one might call the physical phenomena of mysticism. Two miracles in particular, which are deemed impossible: levitation, that is, hovering, defying the laws of gravity, or in some cases, actually going from point A to point B through the air. And the other being bilocation, being seen in two places simultaneously. So, my book, They Flew, is the title, subtitle is, A History of the Impossible. Um, my book was dismissed as deeply unserious by a reviewer in the New York Review of Books. Deeply unserious. Yet, that very same year that the review appeared, I received an award from the American Academy of Religion for the best book in the history of religion for that year. So, something is amiss, something is weird. Yes, it’s a weird subject. So, just like UAPs, UFOs, levitation and bilocation are deemed impossible by dogmatic materialists, and also by our dominant culture here in the Western world. Yet, there are, in my time period, which is about 1400 to 1700, there are hundreds, and in some cases, if you add them all up, thousands of testimonies of people who swear that they have seen someone up in the air, or they have seen someone here who was actually there. And in my case, I was very lucky because in my time period everything changed around mid-16th century in the reporting of miracles, which is: the Catholic Church set up a system for, uh, investigating the truth or falsehood of miracle claims. And, um, beatification inquests and canonization inquests had a questionnaire for every so-called eyewitness. And the questionnaire had a section on miracles. And everyone who testified in one of these inquests swore, as we do in courts of law to this day, to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. But the difference, uh, that made this testimony special is that every eyewitness had to swear under oath that they were telling the truth. And the penalty was not some time behind bars or some fine. The penalty was hell, or a long stint in purgatory. And most of these eyewitnesses, the vast majority of them, believed in hell and purgatory. So I have a, a little kind of buffer there as a historian, what makes this testimony credible. And actually on the flip side of the coin, over on the Protestant side during this period, Protestants denied that God was behind all these miracles, but Protestants as a rule continued to believe that these miracles actually did happen, except what they believed was that they were caused by the devil. So, another testimony that I found very compelling and very hard to dismiss as a historian was a 1693 Boston, just after the Salem witch trials. Um, a teenage girl is considered to be possessed by the devil. And, um, she levitates. And, um, great Puritan theologian and churchman Cotton Mather gathers several men in the room with this girl, and, uh, just like Linda Blair in the first Exorcist film, uh, up she goes above the bed. But… [Visual, 4:50:00] Carlos Eire standing at a podium in front of a marble wall, with the “Disclosure Foundation” logo in the top-left corner. [Carlos Eire, 4:50:00] Mather tells his men to hold her down or pull her down, and they can’t. [Carlos Eire, 4:50:06] And he makes them all sign legal affidavits. [Carlos Eire, 4:50:11] And we have them. [Carlos Eire, 4:50:14] So, it’s a little harder to dismiss that than somebody writing the life of a saint where they want to portray them as a saint, who might be making things up. [Carlos Eire, 4:50:24] So, anyway, arguing that this testimony is difficult to dismiss, I don’t argue in my book that I’m convinced. I just say these are things that are hard to dismiss and we should be a little more open-minded. [Carlos Eire, 4:50:38] The book comes out and all of a sudden, I find myself on the paranormal spectrum. [Carlos Eire, 4:50:44] And I’m interviewed by podcasters and all other sorts of public persona who deal with the paranormal, which includes of course, UAPs, UFOs, and NHIs. And there I am. [Carlos Eire, 4:51:03] So this is why a historian of late medieval and early modern religious history is here speaking to you. [Carlos Eire, 4:51:10] But I’m not here as an expert on encounters with UAPs or NHIs, or retrieved extraterrestrial stuff, be it biological or non-biological, or synthetic. [Carlos Eire, 4:51:25] I really have no clue what to make of the evidence in recent disclosure dumps, or about the testimonies of experiencers, and I’ll come back to that term experiencer. [Carlos Eire, 4:51:38] As far as I can tell, my own take on what is out there is shaped by my study of religion, and of miracle accounts. [Carlos Eire, 4:51:48] And when all is said and done, I am more convinced by the opinion voiced by astronomer J. Allen Hynek, and also in charge of Project Blue Book. [Carlos Eire, 4:52:02] He made this statement in 1982. And Jacques Vallée and others make similar statements, and I’m quoting from Hynek: [Carlos Eire, 4:52:11] “I would not be prepared to defend the thesis that UFOs represent visitors from outer space. Indeed, I think the answer may be even more interesting than that. I think the answer will be very exotic, beyond our imagination, possibly something that we should call paranormal.” [Carlos Eire, 4:52:36] So here I am. [Carlos Eire, 4:52:37] And here’s what I’m going to do over the next 15 to 20 minutes. [Carlos Eire, 4:52:44] Divide my talk into three areas. [Carlos Eire, 4:52:49] The first is the background to the fear that full disclosure of the existence of extraterrestrial non-human intelligences, the fear that it will cause widespread panic, the end of Western civilization, the end of religion. [Carlos Eire, 4:53:08] The second part will be a brief history of religious beliefs concerning non-human intelligences and extraterrestrial beings. [Carlos Eire, 4:53:17] And the third will be a, an exploration of the subject of why we really need to get over such fears, and the fear of making full disclosure. [Carlos Eire, 4:53:32] So, the first point, the background to the fear. [Carlos Eire, 4:53:37] If we do have undeniable evidence of visitation by non-human intelligences, the world will be shocked for sure. [Carlos Eire, 4:53:45] It will be a major rupture in our understanding of reality. [Carlos Eire, 4:53:51] A rupture, as I’m using it, is a deep break with past worldviews, and a deeper break than a paradigm shift. [Carlos Eire, 4:54:06] Paradigm shift: Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and others brought about paradigm shifts. [Carlos Eire, 4:54:15] A full revelation that we are actually not alone will be much, much bigger, and it will affect the whole world. [Carlos Eire, 4:54:28] Paradigm shifts in science take root gradually, and they begin taking root with scientists, and then eventually it comes out, but it might take a while. [Carlos Eire, 4:54:40] Full disclosure of the existence of non-human intelligences that have been visiting us, who might have craft, that will create a rupture globally, regardless of where you live on Earth. [Carlos Eire, 4:54:58] Well, except for maybe that island that can’t be visited because the people who have been living there kill anyone who approaches their shores. Maybe there they won’t be affected. [Carlos Eire, 4:55:15] So, as far as religion is concerned, the impact will be unpredictable. [Carlos Eire, 4:55:22] Religion is unpredictable. [Carlos Eire, 4:55:24] Religion is all about disagreements. [Carlos Eire, 4:55:28] Social scientists began to argue in the early part of the 20th century that religion, especially symbols and rituals, were social glue, something that held secular culture together. [Carlos Eire, 4:55:45] But it’s also true that religion can be social dynamite. [Carlos Eire, 4:55:51] Disagreements are the stuff of religion. [Carlos Eire, 4:55:56] So how can one predict what effect will this disclosure have? We don’t know. [Carlos Eire, 4:56:02] I am reminded of a joke I heard a long time ago. In reference to only one religion, but it applies to all religions. [Carlos Eire, 4:56:10] Someone is marooned on a deserted island for 30 years. [Carlos Eire, 4:56:15] At the end of the 30 years, the rescuers show up, and they are astonished to find two equally elaborate houses of worship on the island, while the castaway lives in a very crude hut. [Carlos Eire, 4:56:33] So they ask, “What’s going on? Why these two houses of worship?” [Carlos Eire, 4:56:38] And he wheels around and points with utter disgust at one of them and says, “You don’t think I would set foot in that one, do you?” [Carlos Eire, 4:56:48] So who knows what will happen. [Carlos Eire, 4:56:53] But most religions are all about belief in non-human intelligences. [Carlos Eire, 4:57:00] So, religion, could be argued, at least some believers, might actually lessen the shock of full disclosure. [Carlos Eire, 4:57:13] So, what about religions? I’ll go through them quickly. [Carlos Eire, 4:57:18] And I will begin with Western religions because this is our dominant culture still in this country and also in other parts of the world. [Carlos Eire, 4:57:30] In Judaism, in Christianity, and in Islam, the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions, belief is shared in non-human intelligent beings: angels, demons, jinns, or even before the Christian religion took over parts of Europe, leprechauns, duendes, and all other sort, fauns, all other sorts of non-human intelligences. [Carlos Eire, 4:58:07] But Judaism specifically, Genesis 6:1-4 speaks about angels who could mate with humans and create giant hybrids, the Nephilim, whose existence, by the way, was wiped off the Earth by the flood. [Carlos Eire, 4:58:31] The subject of other planets and extraterrestrial life is not brought up in the Hebrew scriptures. [Carlos Eire, 4:58:38] But come down in time, 12th century, some medieval Jewish thinkers, such as Moses Maimonides, argued that the cosmos is vastly larger and more complex than humanity tends to imagine. [Carlos Eire, 4:58:53] And just about the same time, Kabbalistic mystics spoke of multiple worlds and realms of existence. [Carlos Eire, 4:59:02] However, these were usually, and are still usually, understood in Kabbalah as spiritual dimensions rather than physical planets inhabited by biological beings. [Carlos Eire, 4:59:15] And to this day, in all the various branches of the Jewish religion, many contemporary Orthodox, Conservative, Reform Jewish thinkers hold that: [Carlos Eire, 4:59:30] Number one, God could create life elsewhere if He wished. [Carlos Eire, 4:59:35] Two, the Torah was given to humanity and does not need to describe every aspect of the universe. [Carlos Eire, 4:59:43] And number three, that the existence of extraterrestrials would raise interesting theological questions but would not invalidate Jewish belief. [Carlos Eire, 4:59:55] Then moving on down in time, Christian… [Visual, 5:00:00] Dr. Carlos Eire standing at a wooden podium. The Disclosure Foundation logo is visible in the top-left corner. [Carlos Eire, 5:00:00] … religion. [Carlos Eire, 5:00:01] History of Christian thinking about intelligent beings beyond Earth is much older and more diverse than more pe- than many people assume. [Carlos Eire, 5:00:13] There has never been a single official Christian position, and views have ranged from [Visual, 5:00:20] A man walks across the screen, temporarily blocking the speaker from view. [Carlos Eire, 5:00:20] humans are uniquely rational creatures, to, God may have created many intelligent races throughout the cosmos. [Carlos Eire, 5:00:30] But the central issue in the Christian religion has been and remains, salvation by Jesus Christ. [Carlos Eire, 5:00:40] If there are other beings, uh, uh, how do they relate to this? How does salvation relate to other beings? [Carlos Eire, 5:00:51] It has never, not unt- not even into the 20th century, the existence of inhabited worlds beyond Earth has never been a major theological question in the Christian religion. [Carlos Eire, 5:01:06] But as I said before, Christians have believed in angels and demons. [Carlos Eire, 5:01:16] In the early centuries of the Christian religion, one thinker, Origen of Alexandria, developed a highly speculative Christian cosmology. [Carlos Eire, 5:01:31] And among other things, Origen said that God created a vast spiritual order populated by rational beings, and that angels, humans, and demons were all part of a larger family of rational creatures, and that the material world served as a setting for the education and restoration of these rational beings. [Carlos Eire, 5:02:00] Origen is credited with coming up with the method of the interpretation of scripture carried out by Christians from the third century forward, three different levels of meaning. [Carlos Eire, 5:02:16] So he’s very important for that reason, but some of his teachings were condemned as heretical, including this one I just mentioned, that there might be other worlds with other creatures. [Carlos Eire, 5:02:30] Um, very complex thinker who was once described in the 13th century by a churchman in Constantinople in the following way: where Origen was good, no one was better; where Origen was bad, no one has been worse. [Carlos Eire, 5:02:51] So again, we’re facing this complexity. [Carlos Eire, 5:02:56] My favorite quote on this topic from Origen is the following, and it concerns the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. [Carlos Eire, 5:03:08] And I quote: “The altar was at Jerusalem, but the blood of the victim bathed the universe.” [Carlos Eire, 5:03:16] Universal, cosmic application of this. [Carlos Eire, 5:03:21] Of course, there are disagreements. [Carlos Eire, 5:03:25] Throughout the Middle Ages, various Christian theologians took up the issue of why—not why, but could other planets exist, other worlds with intelligent life? [Carlos Eire, 5:03:44] The debate went something like this: well, if God is omnipotent, of course He has the power to create as many worlds as He wants, and as many different kinds of beings as He wants. [Carlos Eire, 5:03:57] And in scholastic theology, which was all about debating and disagreement, of course there was disagreement on this issue. There was never any kind of final answer to the question: are there other human—not human beings, but non-human intelligences out there? [Carlos Eire, 5:04:16] It’s not until the early modern period, 15th through 17th centuries, when the discovery is made that the Earth is not the center of the universe, that theological discussion changes. [Carlos Eire, 5:04:34] Figures such as Copernicus and Galileo transformed Christian understandings of the cosmos. [Carlos Eire, 5:04:43] And among early thinkers that pop up during this period who argue for the existence of other worlds is a Dominican friar, Giordano Bruno, who ended up being burned at the stake for heresy in Rome, for many issues, not just this one. [Carlos Eire, 5:05:09] But Bruno is among the first early modern thinkers to argue that the universe is infinite, and that therefore there must be life, intelligent life, elsewhere. And I quote from Giordano Bruno: [Carlos Eire, 5:05:27] “God is infinite, so His universe must be too. Thus the greatness of God is magnified, the greatness of His kingdom made manifest. He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single Earth, but in a thousand, I say, no, and an infinity of worlds.” [Carlos Eire, 5:05:52] After Bruno, others began to pop up with more regularity in the 18th century. And the Enlightenment changes everything. [Carlos Eire, 5:06:05] Belief in inhabited planets became increasingly common among educated Europeans in the 1700s. [Carlos Eire, 5:06:14] Writers and theologians often assumed the Creator who made a vast universe would populate it with intelligent life. [Carlos Eire, 5:06:24] And among these was a Lutheran scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg, 18th century, who believed that countless worlds were inhabited and contributed to the fullness of heaven, and that in the spiritual world distance was determined by states of mind and spirit rather than physical space. [Carlos Eire, 5:06:46] And he received visitors from Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, and the Moon, which, of course, now makes him seem very silly by our current knowledge. But he had an impact, and others followed. [Carlos Eire, 5:07:04] And it all speeds up in the 19th century, and it speeds up even more in the 20th century. [Carlos Eire, 5:07:11] Notable Christian thinkers in the 20th century who took up the issue or the question of whether there are other intelligent beings out there, were C.S. Lewis, Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, and Protestant theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. [Carlos Eire, 5:07:36] What about contemporary Christian views? [Carlos Eire, 5:07:39] Well, I’ve already read at least a dozen articles where some pastor or minister or evangelist somewhere says, “Oh, if there are non-human intelligences and then this becomes known, many Christians will lose their faith.” [Carlos Eire, 5:07:53] And it’s probably true, yeah, it is, but not necessarily all Christians. [Carlos Eire, 5:08:00] Contemporary Christian views are all over the place, all over the spectrum, but the main question remains for Christians: what is Christ’s role concerning these other beings? [Carlos Eire, 5:08:20] So there might be some shock, but there might also be plenty of acceptance of whatever is revealed. [Carlos Eire, 5:08:29] What about Islam? [Carlos Eire, 5:08:32] Several Quranic passages have been interpreted by some Muslim scholars as leaving room for life beyond Earth. [Carlos Eire, 5:08:41] God is repeatedly described as the Lord of the worlds, suggesting a cosmos that contains many realms or worlds. [Carlos Eire, 5:08:49] And the Quran also states that God created whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the Earth, and that His creative power is not limited to humanity. [Carlos Eire, 5:08:59] But of course, it’s also the case with every religion: there are different branches of Islam, different opinions on subjects. [Carlos Eire, 5:09:09] So the question there, the central question is the role of the Prophet Muhammad, and of his revelation, on all these other creatures, so no one knows how that’s going to play out. [Carlos Eire, 5:09:23] When it comes to Asian religions, and of course, I’m only dealing with major world religions, in which believers are counted in millions or, in some cases, billions, in Buddhism, early Buddhist texts describe a vast cosmos containing innumerable world systems, that include humans, animals, spirits, hell beings, various classes of gods, and powerful celestial beings called Brahmas. [Carlos Eire, 5:09:59] So… [Visual, 5:10:00] Speaker 1 stands at the podium with “Disclosure Foundation” logo in the top-left corner. [Speaker 1, 5:10:00] How’s that going to play out, this full disclosure among Buddhists? There’s no telling. But the shock will not be as deep as it might be in the West, because most contemporary Buddhist thinkers would likely ask, not these questions: Do extraterrestrials exist? What is their relationship to our rel— [Speaker 2, 5:12:08] Former subject, I, former subject of the Soviet Empire, I can testify that all this lying and hiding does subvert and destroy trust. [Speaker 1, 5:12:39] So, drawing to a close, of our conference, uh, on that panel, on this issue, across all the religious traditions. And the final session was on UFO and experience. And then I saw a link, between what is precisely John Mack’s study of the abductees, and human beings, known as experiencers, who have experienced, you know, extraterrestrial, non-human contact. Same problem, believability, believability of this experience is very difficult. [Speaker 1, 5:13:28] One panelist presentation at this congress, in which a 45-minute video related to us, his personal experiences, with various types of non-human beings. My first exposure, of testimony, in detail, of course. [Speaker 1, 5:13:49] But let me close with another one. Dr. John Mack, in his book, “Passport to the Cosmos,” holds also, the position that the experiencer experience, is what he calls, a mystical experience. “I have encountered another reality, so I believe.” And I quote, from Dr. John Mack: “So when you are dealing with something like this, an experience so anomalous, so disconnected from the normal life we share with other people, that you can’t even figure out how to talk about it. I was also, at that meeting, afraid of sounding crazy. Try inserting an account of a mystical experience into a conversation, and you will likely get the same response as you would if you confided that you’d been the victim of an alien abduction.” [Speaker 1, 5:14:51] And finally, there was a, personal echo, of a student, who was in my class, some, 4 years ago, at my university. My class was on Gnostics. I always used to, in the class, in my lectures, I always say, “Now, these texts are going to be very weird. But, the people who wrote them, are accurate. They are probably the kind of person you would want to sit next to, in a bus. They see things, that others don’t.” This student, who had already taken two of my courses, she came up after the lecture. She was a great student, she was loved by every faculty member who had taught her, at the university. She came up after the lecture, and she says, “Professor, I’m one of the Gnostics. I see things, other people don’t see, all the time.” And she was not, as, standard psychiatry would suggest, she was highly functional. [Speaker 1, 5:16:14] So, the world of these mystics, mystical experiences, and UFO experiences… The word, “ecstasy”, comes from ex-stasis, which means, standing outside, of one’s self. So… could, full disclosure… could this… full disclosure… be, one way of showing, that, hiding these things, and lying, is, is what we’re doing to ourselves? Of course, it would be that. Yes, it is possible, that this, will usher in, if disclosure becomes, a way, that we will begin, a new era, in which… thank you. [Visual, 5:17:13] Speaker 1 shakes hands and steps down from the podium. [Visual, 5:17:28] Two men in suits stand at the podium, whispering. [Speaker 3, 5:17:42] So, we’re going to take five minutes. The audio is down, so, please, stay close, but, uh, the audio gears have got to cool, and I think every conversation from here on out is being recorded, so, please stay close. But, uh… [Visual, 5:18:14] Blue screen with text: “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” [Visual, 5:20:00] Title screen: “THE LIVE STREAM WILL RESUME SHORTLY” with the Disclosure Foundation logo. [Visual, 5:25:40] Scene cuts to the press conference room with attendees taking their seats and a moderator standing at the podium. [Speaker 1, 5:25:56] Alright, so if we can take our seats everybody. Assuming, uh, the live feed is now working. We gotta do what we gotta do here, so I want to introduce, introduce Dr. Denise, uh, Loeber. So, guys, hey. If we can sit down. If everybody can take a seat, we can introduce Dr. Denise Loeber. [Speaker 1, 5:26:45] Alright. So we’re we’re we’re we’re pushing ahead. Alright. So, uh, the next presentation we have is from Dr. Denise Loeber. She is a clinical psychologist and former chief director of therapy at Navy Health Clinic San Diego, and is a specialist in societal psychology, how people process the unprecedented. So we are going to try and, uh, without amplification, we’re just gonna try to push through whatever technical difficulties, uh, we continue to have. Uh, thank you so much. [Denise Loeber, 5:27:20] Hello everybody. Thank you so much, uh, for having me. It is a pleasure to be here to present the findings of our report on the psychological impact… [Visual, 5:27:28] Close-up of Denise Loeber at the podium. [Denise Loeber, 5:27:29] …of… on the psychological impact of disclosure. Um, so, I wanted to, before I get started, I just want to make sure that I acknowledge my, uh, co-authors. This was a… an international effort of academic psychologists. We have Ted Owens from Harvard University, Ariane Stevens from Cardiff Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, uh, Omar Al-Hadi from Wright State University, Gabriela Alari from the, uh, University of Cadiz in Spain, and then we have Professor, uh, I’m sorry, Thomas Girard who is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Lyon in, uh, France. So, these are some of the only academic psychologists on the planet that are braving the stigma in this area, which is really anomalous science and UAP studies, and so it was a true honor to be able to work with them. Despite the awkwardness of this presentation. Alright. So, the reason that we got together to do this report is because number one, there is a tremendous amount of misinformation on this subject, and we hope that by doing this, we can bring some clarity. Um, the other reason, and perhaps the most important reason, is that, um based on the president’s directive, we know that disclosure is already in progress. So… Alright. I wasn’t nervous before at all. Okay. Um, disclosure is already in progress, and we know that the data is being released to the public, and, um based on the information that has been out there, there have been a number of important people in positions of power, both in the military and in the government, who have made statements to the public indicating that based on their review of classified data, they believe that non-human intelligence may be involved. So, currently… [Visual, 5:30:00] Disclosure Foundation logo in the top-left corner. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:30:00] …is to demand that we begin to think ahead about what the possible consequences of that disclosure could be. We also want to think about what are the possible preparedness measures that we need to take as a society. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:30:17] Waiting to see what happens will be too late. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:30:23] At the end of the day, UAP disclosure is about people as much as it is about science. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:30:29] We all want to know what the UAPs are, but information at the end of the day is irrelevant unless it is interpreted through the mind of a human being who makes meaning out of it. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:30:45] How we adapt to that information is just as important as what we discover. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:30:53] One of the long-standing barriers to UAP disclosure has been a concern that the public may be unable to handle the information without significant societal disruption. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:31:03] Our report does not support that conclusion. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:31:07] We believe that most people will be able to adapt to disclosure information without lasting psychological harm, including the revelation of non-human intelligence. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:31:23] That said, one of the other findings that we came up with is how the information is communicated matters as much as the information itself. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:31:38] One of our main findings is that people adapt best when communication is trustworthy and truthful, even if that truth is uncertain. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:31:49] People adapt most poorly, and they experience more psychological distress, when communication is untrustworthy or managed in such a way that they feel that they are being deceived. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:32:03] The psychological impact of disclosure, ultimately, is going to be determined by institutional choices that have not yet been made. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:32:15] So now to walk you through a brief overview of the report, which you should all have an executive summary briefing in your folders, and if you are interested, there is a 268-page document online on the Disclosure Foundation website. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:32:29] But effectively, the design of the way that the study is laid out is to match how a human processes an experience. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:32:37] Number one, there is an event. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:32:39] Number two, it passes through the internal psychological matching, which is made up of a very complex level of processing where people pass things through all of their belief systems, their cognitive biases, their limitations in terms of how much attention they can dedicate to it. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:32:57] Simultaneously, they are processing in their external environment and factors like the ability to mediate how they are seeing the world. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:33:07] From that, we get a psychological response, generally behavioral or emotional. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:33:15] In order to define the disclosure process, we had to delineate stages. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:33:27] These different stages have different threshold events and different psychological impacts. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:33:34] The first stage, limited disclosure, is the stage that the US government is currently engaged in. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:33:40] We know that information is being released, the position that the government takes is that UAPs are real and they do not know what they are. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:33:49] There are at least 12 other governments that have engaged in this type of limited disclosure. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:33:56] We know that the impact to the public is generally to raise interest, to ask questions, and to reduce stigma. However, in terms of societal impact, it has been quite low. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:34:10] Confirmatory disclosure, which is stage number two, would go to a threshold that no other government has gone before. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:34:18] This would be where the official government as well as scientists can confirm that the UAP are not of human origin and that they are acting beyond the capability of anything we have. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:34:33] We believe that at this stage, it would increase the number of questions that people have, it would certainly raise interest. For some people, it may raise anxiety. But generally speaking, unless the UAP are of personal relevance to them or there is some indication that they are actually dangerous or threatening, we don’t believe it would have a very significant impact. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:34:55] Stage number three, which is attribution disclosure, is the stage at which the government would actually confirm that there are, in fact, non-human intelligence associated with those UAP. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:35:08] This is a stage that would be unprecedented in human history. This is a stage at which we believe that there would, in fact, be more psychological impact, and we believe that—and this is actually the stage that we focused our assessment in terms of the response pattern. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:35:27] The next two stages, reconciliation disclosure and full integrated disclosure, are obviously quite speculative. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:35:32] We don’t have enough data to be able to assess how people would respond in those stages, but effectively, reconciliation disclosure would really just be people finding out more of the information, the government releasing more of what has been known, what are the interactions that have taken place over time. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:35:51] Full integrated disclosure would be more if the—as people are adapting to the new information and how that becomes a part of their day-to-day life. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:05] The important thing to note here is that the past will not predict the future. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:10] Confirmation of non-human intelligence is a threshold event for which there is no historical precedent. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:16] The risk is being unprepared for the response surge, which I’ll talk about in just a moment. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:23] It’s also possible that there could be uncontrolled disclosure, and yes, thank you, Mr. Spielberg, for making that point for us. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:31] It is possible that there are other countries or third parties that may have UAP or NHI information. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:39] Disclosure events, as we know, are global, and there certainly is an increased potential for negative outcome if this were to occur. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:49] So, we need to be prepared for uncontrolled data release. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:36:56] The second part of our study looks very in-depth at what are the psychological mechanisms that people engage in as they are processing disclosure information. [Visual, 5:37:02] A man in a suit stands up in the background and walks to the podium. [Visual, 5:37:06] The man whispers to Dr. Vilhauer, adjusts something, and walks back. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:37:07] There’s tremendous complexity, certainly an enormous variety of beliefs and cognitive biases. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:37:14] There’s also, again, limited amount of resources that people can dedicate to this information based on just general everyday priorities. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:37:25] The two factors that we know have the most impact are going to be perceived threat and personal relevance. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:37:32] As those go up, obviously, those are going to make people have a greater emotional impact. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:37:39] What we know from the current state in this first stage of disclosure is really that most people do not perceive UAP to be relevant to their daily life, and from survey data, we know that most people also do not perceive them to be threatening. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:37:59] The important takeaway from this section is that interpretation determines outcome, not information. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:38:10] Interpretation without guidance creates confusion, anxiety, stress, susceptibility to emotional contagion, polarization in viewpoints, distrust of institutions and others, a lack of compliance with government directives, compulsive information seeking, and a breeding ground for misinformation, poor psychological outcomes, and it increases the need for public services. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:38:45] Providing information with guidance is warranted, which brings us to our next section, which is on communication—well, actually, it’s on mediating factors, but the two biggest mediating factors that come up over and over in the research, in disaster research and trauma research, are that communication and institutional trust are going to shape the way that people interpret this information the most. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:39:12] Communication influences institutional trust, trust influences the way that communication is received. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:39:20] Both of these two factors increase and influence resiliency. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:39:26] The takeaway message here is that the delivery matters as much as what is disclosed. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:39:32] Now, in our report, we go into extreme detail about all of the different mechanisms of communication that can be utilized—what works, what harms, what’s counterintuitive but we know is effectively established through research, what are various audience-specific communications that need to be established, there’s not a one-size-fits-all. [Dr. Jennice Vilhauer, 5:39:54] The one piece that I want to spend a tiny bit on today is understanding that the media environment is… [Speaker 1, 5:40:00] …preparedness infrastructure. We know that the media is an enormous communication system, but we also know that the media is made up of individual people with individual beliefs and cognitive biases that they bring as they report on UAP data. [Speaker 1, 5:40:17] So I want to play for you, um, a news clip. This was from the very first, uh, data drop that was back in May. [Visual, 5:40:26] The camera pans to a television screen displaying an ABC News Live broadcast. [Speaker 2, 5:40:26] …release of the first ever batch of UFO files today. So, were there actually little green men or something else? Let’s bring in our pair of extraterrestrial aficionados, ABC News senior Pentagon reporter Luis Martinez and Capitol Hill correspondent Jay O’Brien. [Speaker 2, 5:40:44] Mm, mm. [Speaker 2, 5:40:48] Yeah, I love how you’re both looking at me like are we really sitting here about to talk about little green men? [Speaker 3, 5:40:53] This is Louis’s favorite topic. [Speaker 2, 5:40:54] Yeah, it is, Louis, is it? So, Louis, are there aliens out there? [Visual, 5:40:56] The television screen shows commentators in the studio with the caption “PRES. TRUMP TOUTS RELEASE OF UFO FILES”. [Visual, 5:41:02] The television screen displays a blue slide reading “Stigma is systemically perpetuated”. [Visual, 5:41:03] The camera pans back to Speaker 1 at the lectern. [Speaker 1, 5:40:59] Partly. [Speaker 1, 5:41:04] So, basically, we know that, um, this affect… I’m sorry, we call it the giggle effect. But it’s a very, very common way that people behave when they talk about UAP data. I’m sure all of you have seen it, perhaps some of you have done it yourselves. [Speaker 1, 5:41:20] The reason that people do this, sorry, is that it… okay. [Speaker 1, 5:41:27] The reason that people do this is that it protect… [stammers]… Okay, it protects their reputation, okay? [Speaker 1, 5:41:36] So, essentially, the UAP subject has been treated as non-serious for such a long period of time that people feel that if they engage with it in a serious way, it’s actually going to make themselves be perceived as non-serious. So this is, um, a form of social conformity. [Speaker 1, 5:41:56] The really interesting thing about social conformity is that oftentimes people have a belief that others do not think it is serious, when in fact they don’t really know what other people are thinking, and so they will conform to that anyway. [Speaker 1, 5:42:11] The other big thing that contributes to this is institutional silence. We all know that, uh, people who… or, I’m sorry, institutions that have a tremendous amount of influence, when they don’t challenge the idea that UAP are not serious, this creates a framework that reinforces itself and becomes very hard to challenge. [Speaker 1, 5:42:32] What I don’t think most people recognize is that stigma is profoundly harmful. [Speaker 1, 5:42:39] Over the years, it has limited scientific research and funding, it limits witness reporting, that poor data is then used as evidence to say that this is a subject that isn’t worth studying. [Speaker 1, 5:42:55] The lack of scientific data contributes to misinformation. [Speaker 1, 5:43:00] It limits clinical care and provider training, which means that there is an entire group of medical providers out there that have absolutely no idea how to work with or treat somebody that may have a UAP experience. [Speaker 1, 5:43:14] It increases social isola… isolation, and it creates a very big disclosure barrier. [Speaker 1, 5:43:23] We believe that applying journalistic integrity standards, in the same way that you would apply them to any other subject, is what is crucial for UAP and for increasing positive outcomes. [Speaker 1, 5:43:38] Okay. So, in the fourth section of our report, we get into the psychological response. So, we believe that psychological response in general is going to happen across a spectrum. There will be people who respond to it in a very positive way, um, there will be a large number of people who actually respond to it in a very sort of neutral way, unless it becomes something that is more threatening to them or more personally relevant. [Speaker 1, 5:44:05] There will be a number of people who do have some anxiety and adjustment-related types of issues as they try to process what does this information mean for them and for their lives and their own belief systems. [Speaker 1, 5:44:16] And then as we go down into the smaller end of the tail, this is where we get into more vulnerable populations that are likely to have more significant psychological reaction. [Speaker 1, 5:44:28] So, the vulnerable populations that are most at risk are going to be people who have a high tolerance for uncertainty. This is a transdiagnostic factor that tends to cross over multiple mental health issues. People who have high anxiety and other mental health conditions, marginalized or under-resourced communities, and those who carry catastrophic or end-of-time beliefs. [Speaker 1, 5:44:53] Now, what I am not saying here is that everybody in these categories is going to have a negative psychological response. So, what I am saying is that we, we actually believe that a lot of people who may fall into these categories actually will have quite adequate coping resources. But what I am saying is that these people who fall into these groups tend to be people who may have a higher, uh, psychological response. [Speaker 1, 5:45:16] The thing to keep in mind is that small numbers in a concentrated period, as would happen under a disclosure circumstance, can create system surge beyond capacity, right? So, mental health systems in general and often other public health systems already operate at capacity or close to capacity. So, even a small number of people that are reaching out for services can push that to exceeding capacity and meeting the definition of a public health crisis. [Speaker 1, 5:45:47] It’s also really worth knowing that this potential surge could last over a period of time as more and more information becomes revealed. [Speaker 1, 5:45:57] So, again, planning and preparation are much needed to reduce surge risk and improve outcomes. [Speaker 1, 5:46:05] Okay. So, our key recommendations, number one would be to develop a national psychological and resilience preparedness task force. This would be a group of people that would be able to oversee behavioral health coordination, help to develop a scalable mental health surge capacity, um, people who engage in clinical and workforce preparedness training, public psychoeducation, build community support systems, and crisis intervention systems. [Speaker 1, 5:46:32] The other recommendation would be to build an evidence-based communication preparedness infrastructure. This would help with cross-agency coordination, crisis communication, environment monitoring, developing audience-specific communication, and engaging with the media. [Speaker 1, 5:46:50] The mystery of UAP will eventually be resolved. The scientists are going to continue to collect the data, they will analyze it, and they will come to conclusions. But ultimately, how we treat people will be our legacy. The time to prepare is now. [Visual, 5:47:11] Speaker 1 leaves the podium as the audience applauds. [Visual, 5:47:13] The camera zooms out showing the entire conference hall and audience applauding. [Visual, 5:47:29] Jordan Flowers standing at the lectern. [Jordan Flowers, 5:47:28] All right. Thank you. Can I get a thumbs up in the back if you can hear if the audio is working? Oh, thank goodness. Okay. [Jordan Flowers, 5:47:35] Um, so, let’s turn this off. Okay. So, our next panel is Technology and Innovation, Research Industry, and What Comes Next. So, for this panel, we have our moderator, Mike Gold, uh, who’s an advisory board member of the Disclosure Foundation. Um, he’s the president and civil space, uh, president, Civil and International Space at Redwire Space. [Jordan Flowers, 5:48:00] He’s a former member of the NASA UAP, uh, independent study team as well. Also, our Jonathan Miller, program engineer at MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, lead instructor for Confronting Unknowns program at MIT, and Susan Wynterberg, the former inaugural fellow of Technology and Public Purpose Project at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. [Jordan Flowers, 5:48:24] Thank you all so much for being here, and I know we’re delayed a little bit because of, uh, what happened there. So why don’t we, um, looking at the time here, why is it okay if you guys go until 3:40? Okay, all right. [Visual, 5:48:41] The panelists walk to the table on stage. [Jordan Flowers, 5:48:49] And, uh, please do, uh, lean in close to the, uh, close to the mics. Thank you. [Visual, 5:49:01] The camera pans to the panelists sitting at the table on stage under a TV screen displaying “Technology & Innovation”. [Mike Gold, 5:48:59] Well, let’s have a round of applause for Jordan Flowers and all he and the Disclosure Foundation team have done. [Mike Gold, 5:49:07] Just being in this venue, being on Capitol Hill, pushes back against the stigma, the pernicious stigma. So, even just being here, I think is important. And again, I applaud all of you and Disclosure Foundation for bringing us. [Mike Gold, 5:49:23] So, without any further ado, let me introduce our two panelists, Susan Wynterberg, who’s a senior fellow for dual-use defense and deep tech tech funds at Reframe Venture, a network of 500 venture capital funds, over 100 institutional investors. [Mike Gold, 5:49:37] Be careful, I may ask you for money, we’re always fundraising. At Redwire, uh, she was previously the inaugural fellow for the Technology and Public Purpose Project at Harvard, Belfer Center, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s initiative to advance research and policy to ensure frontier technologies develop in ways that protect the public. Good, let’s have a round of applause for Susan. [Visual, 5:50:00] Mike Gold, Jonathan Miller, and Susan Winterberg are seated at a panel table in front of a red curtain with the Disclosure Foundation logo in the upper-left corner. [Mike Gold, 5:50:01] And then my friend from Boston Red Sox Nation, much struggling these days, J-Mill, a Jonathan Miller, leads the confronting unknowns program at MIT where he is a program engineer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Growing up in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, Jonathan performed applied research and development for the US Army and Navy and then became a venture founder, investor and educator. He is the publisher of the End Factor and co-host of Tough Tech Today. Every day is tough tech for me. The premier podcast featuring tech blazers. We talk about the stigma, having MIT at the table is critical, let’s have a round of applause and a big thank you to Jonathan for coming. [Mike Gold, 5:50:46] Now, we are going to try and coordinate the questions with the presentation. Can we go to the first slide? If that makes sense… [Jonathan Miller, 5:50:50] We’ll take it for a spin here, let’s see. There we go. [Jonathan Miller, 5:50:55] And if not, Lester? [Visual, 5:50:56] A man in a dark suit walks behind the panel on the right. [Jonathan Miller, 5:50:58] Thank you. [Mike Gold, 5:50:59] So, first question, obviously, UAP is something extraordinary when it comes to science, when it comes to our understanding of who we are as humanity, but it is a national security issue, uh, military issue. And my first question is, what are the challenges that military and security operators face when encountering anomalous phenomena? Jonathan. [Jonathan Miller, 5:51:25] Well, there’s a, there’s a lot to it. Um, and first, I, a, a, this is a personal opinion, it’s not the official position of MIT. Um, but thank you for the shout-out. Um, and so something, I guess a little of a preamble to that is, and we have on the screen there is, um, a recent publication, collaboratively authored by, by, uh, members, some, many of whom are here and guest speakers as well. Um, and so we encourage you to take a look to, to that and we’ll, we’ll, we’ll speak more on that. Um, but part of the, the, the motivation for creating a, an independent activity that we convened at MIT, um, earlier this year, um, was focused on sensemaking. Um, we call Confronting of Unknowns, um, with the, the motivating factor that, um, a lot of frontline operators of various, um, various kinds of experiences that we learned about a lot today have getting in positions of high uncertainty, which they’re pretty well trained at, but also positions of concern. Um, and I know, uh, I think we could all agree that we want to have safe aerospace, um, safe things going on above our heads, um, and so to that, that’s sort of the wedge, um, that we use for this, this, um, program to help start to get toward the grander challenge of, of unidentified anomalous phenomena. So how do we get better as sensemakers so that like our frontline found, frontline folks, from startup entrepreneurs to military folks, to intelligence community members, to someone who’s working in an observatory, how do they, um, if they see something they don’t recognize and are not sure how to [Visual, 5:53:01] An audience member raises a smartphone to take a photo of the panel. [Jonathan Miller, 5:53:02] like frame it out, um, how can we try to, to, to help them be better as sensemakers because then we’ll all be able to be better sensemakers in our respective lines of work. Um, Susan, I, I’m sure you have, much more on that. [Susan Winterberg, 5:53:13] Yeah, so the course that met over two days, uh, back in January, I think we had about 55 people there representing probably the most diverse group of people I’ve ever worked with. Um, everything from former, um, operators in the Navy, in the Air Force, CIA, NASA. We had journalists there, we had, um, disinformation specialists there, people that did content moderation at Twitter. So such a diverse group of people, um, all working together on this problem intensely, and including a big war gaming exercise that the MIT Wargaming Lab Center put for us, kind of modeled on like the New Jersey drones incident, if you remember from a few years ago. Absolute pandemonium, chaos. We were running around yelling at each other. We didn’t know which agency had authorization, all the data coming in, we didn’t know if it was deepfakes. So really just trying to model out what it’s like to be a frontline operator, whether you’re operating a 911 call center or, you know, you’re the person from the FBI on the frontlines that has to like make a decision whether to engage something or send surveillance out. So yeah, it really, I think for all of us, really exposed like where the gaps are in our homeland security infrastructure in the United States, and the fact that people from all these different backgrounds in national security, we didn’t know the answer. Um, and it really, which set, set the stage for us for this project and this framework that, that we built over the last six months collaboratively as a, a cohort and a team. [Mike Gold, 5:54:33] And I may take the privilege of sort of moderator panelist that we are not just in the age of disclosure, although shout-out Dan Harary for that wonderful Age of Disclosure film, better than Disclosure Day in my opinion. I’ll take Lue Elizondo if the Webb or the Star is that any day. But we are in the age of drones, of drone warfare. And let’s learn the lessons that are being taught in blood in Ukraine right now where they had thousands of drones in sea containers and cars, sheds, that were released and devastated, devastated the Russian military. Billions and billions of damage was caused by that. And my fear with the UAP phenomena and the pernicious stigma that still surrounds this issue is that we are creating a loophole that adversary nations are leveraging because we ignore, we sweep under the rug any anomalous sighting that we can’t explain. And I guarantee you that many, if not most of those sightings, Langley Air Force Base for example, that we’re seeing, are likely Chinese adversarial drones with China getting prepared to do to us what Ukraine has done to Russia, which would devastate our critical infrastructure, devastate our military facilities. And this is why that stigma is so pernicious. Not just to transparency and accountability, but to our very lives. So let’s take UAP seriously, let’s not allow a lack of imagination to turn into a lack of freedom. [Jonathan Miller, 5:56:16] And I think that’s a, it’s a, I mean, the battle lab of, of, of Ukraine has certainly taught us a lot and, and the lessons learned in blood, um, unfortunately, but it’s, it’s also, we’re seeing some of the most, um, uh, acts of innovating, um, and live testing of new, new kinds of technologies and capabilities, not always for the better. It’s just to, to, to try that out, um, and that’s something that I think is where we’re, we’re seeing a, a shortening of the feedback loop, so to say, on, on, and, um, legislation or, or sort of governmental work, um, US and other, um, say, allies abroad that have been trying to get better at, um, if someone has an idea, um, you know, say, say step back, used to be that, you know, maybe that, you know, maybe like the, the radio operator would have been the most feared person on the battlefield, um, but it’s becoming, um, a 20-year-old with a really good idea because of the speed of, of deployment. And so, um, that puts a, lot of stress, um, not necessarily undue stress on also like the, the, the how might we be able to fund and, um, meaningfully, safely deploy these in like, say, civilian uses too, um, and, and so there’s, we can get into some of those kind of dual-use elements that, um, there’s some, sort of sister program work, um, to confronting unknowns at MIT that, that is about, uh, the, that dual-use element of, say, military or government use, whether it’s, um, probably, you know, could be weapon system, that’s not usually dual-use though, but more like on defensive or even like medical systems that can be, uh, funded and, and useful for government work, and also of course, that kind of commercial or, or even open-source elements, um, in the pursuit of UAP as a grander challenge that’s, it’s not a sector, it’s touches all of it. Um, I mean, it’s like AI like a hundred million X, um, in terms of its potential impact. But the pursuit of that from a technological, scientific and other, you know, humanities as well, as well, um, we can have a lot of great sort of off-ramps of success in terms of discoveries along the way. [Mike Gold, 5:58:18] Let’s talk about one of those dual-use technologies, which is of course, sensors. And Susan, maybe if you want to kick us off, what are the technological innovations that could realistically support operators? What capabilities need to be fielded first in this cause? [Susan Winterberg, 5:58:33] Yeah, so in the class, after we went through that exercise, uh, we got together as a team and said, well, well, what do we need to help better support front, frontline operators? And you know, we started with a really interesting technical question. This is MIT, so the question was, why is it that we know more about an object 500 light-years away from us than one that’s 500 feet away? To us, that just seemed absurd. [Visual, 5:58:47] A person walks across the foreground from right to left. [Susan Winterberg, 5:58:48] So we, we really went deep into like the sensory capabilities and like where the gaps are. And I think like what, what we learned is that what we have to detect things in aerospace are really designed to find three things. They’re looking for missiles, they’re looking for other aircraft, and they’re looking now for drones. Uh, so it’s not really designed to be able to distinguish, you know, what, what is like a, uh, what’s the difference between a balloon and a drone? Or what’s the difference between like, um, a ball of plasma or a ball of light? That we, we know this if it’s way out somewhere in the cosmos. We don’t have that information when it’s up close currently. So we began to just really break down these different kinds of sensors. Uh, so like most of what we have now are like the visual and kinematic sensors, which is telling us, you know, what does it look like or how is it moving? Uh, which is what you do need in the aerospace domain. But to be able to distinguish UAP, there’s a couple other kinds of sensors that frontline operators would actually need. So propulsion signatures, um, or, sorry, I can’t see it, uh, composition, what is it made of, like hyperspectral imagers, uh, that’s what they use to like, tell… [Visual, 6:00:00] Medium shot of Mike Gold, Jonathan Miller, and Susan Winterberg seated at a panel table. [Susan Winterberg, 6:00:00] …you like what the composition is of of an exoplanet. Uh that But we can’t tell that difference like up close yet because we haven’t deployed these kinds of um sensing technologies. So I think that was sort of our starting point um as a as a team was to say okay what would it take for us to build multi-sensor fusion that could be easily deployable uh for frontline operators that have to make these quick decisions. Like do we need to engage whatever this ball of light is? Do we need to shut down the airport because this is a physical drone or is it um you know is it something on the on uh a sensor error or something else? So we really started at That was really our starting point into the uh the deeper analysis uh that we built from this. [Jonathan Miller, 6:00:40] And I think it’s something that um on as a a, you know, aspirational sensemaker is if we if we get comfortable with saying “I don’t know”, um that’s not where the that’s not where the, ideally that’s not where the thinking stops. That’s actually where things begin is if we say “I don’t know”, then what comes after that? Um, and we we take inspiration or you know, from from colleagues, like from, you know, from Avi Loeb and and others who have been part of um the, the convening of this program on saying, “Well, we may take inspiration from um how a uh forensic investigator looks at a crime scene. They, he or she does not know going in what it may be. They may have a hunch, but they’re but they’re working through um an approach to systematically um in many ways, not necessarily rule in something um, but to rule out other elements. And, and in my experience, that’s something that we can um we can get better at. Um, but it really helps, um, for example, if we’re looking at whatever the next uh, you know, UAP flap may be, um, how might we be better at kind of like just saying, okay, it’s not an Airbus Airbus H135 helicopter. Okay, we got that out of the way. Now, let’s look at what, you know, what what else it could be, and we can start to sort of back ourselves in by removing, you know, 90 90% of the uh the normal stuff and figure out that last trailing 10% um we could then explore some of those other hypotheses a little bit more um with a little bit more, you know, sharpened arrow, so to say. [Visual, 6:00:56] Cuts to a wide shot of the room, showing the stage, podium, and audience. [Visual, 6:01:45] Cuts back to the medium shot of the three panelists. [Mike Gold, 6:02:11] Yeah, the most powerful words in science: “I don’t know.” Yet, it’s so difficult for academic orthodoxy to get those three words out of their mouths. It shocks me, the academic community. And sorry to go back to this old chestnut, but I I can’t stop repeating it because I think it gets worse and worse as time goes on. On the NASA UAP independent study team that I served on, it was primarily comprised of academics. Those academics were attacked. They were threatened in terms of their career. They were told that they wouldn’t be able to publish. They were told that they would lose opportunities, or just fired outright. Not for saying that UAP was real, not for saying that there’s non-human intelligence, but just for having the temerity to ask the question. What state is science in, where simply asking the question results in termination? That’s not science. That’s not the scientific method. That’s the antithesis of science. I should know, I’m a lawyer. So, and let me say too, you know, you can’t spell UAV without UAP. At least, not if you’re a bad speller like me. But again, this is where we see the great crossover on the issue with the sensors. And it’s so important that we take these issues seriously. And that’s why I applaud the Trump administration and all of our bipartisan members of Congress for pushing this issue. Not just because of UAP, but if you’re good on UAP, you’re going to be good on drones. There’s such ancillary benefits to taking this issue seriously. And relative to the sensors, when I did testify before Congress, I noted that at NASA, we would study black holes, we study nebulas. If you used military cockpit cameras to study black holes, we wouldn’t know a lot about black holes, would we? Not ideal. We need dedicated sensors to be able to look at the phenomena, create standardized standardized information, uniform information, and yeah, I can’t help but note Avi Loeb over there who has been pushing this for Let’s have a round of applause for Avi. And Hal Puthoff who is sitting next to him. Hal and his lovely wife. Pushing that we get dedicated resources like Galileo, uniform resources, standardized resources, so that we can really look at this phenomena, create data, and move forward. [Visual, 6:04:35] Mike Gold gestures toward Avi Loeb and Hal Puthoff in the audience. [Jonathan Miller, 6:04:55] And something to add on that is that I think that it’s it’s not just um ideally that like an institution or like big dollar kind of um endeavor. Um, I I think there’s very much a part to play um for say the the the aspirational citizen scientist, you know, the the backyard um, uh, commonly a backyard astronomer, but someone who may also set up their own uh weather station at at home. Um, and why not add some, as we see the the, you know, price and capability curves starting to get more affordable for more exquisite sensors, it’s not going to be military grade and it shouldn’t be military grade, but um, we can start to get better at positioning the, what does that like Galileo Project kit look like? And is there is there are there startup opportunities for, um, for new companies to help be able to engage the wheels of capitalism in the way that, you, the United States and and others are quite good at, um, because then we can get so much more wood behind the arrow, um, if that flywheel is engaged, so that the we get commercial interests um with some stake, well aligned with also advancing the kind of scientific and engineering capability development that will kind of help all ships uh float a little bit higher, I think. [Mike Gold, 6:06:06] What a wonderful opportunity this is for citizen science. And the citizen science don’t come with the bias that I’m seeing from the professional scientists. Again, data, then you study, then you come to a conclusion. Not the opposite, which we see far too often. [Jonathan Miller, 6:06:23] And we have good analogs for this, um, in the medical community. Um, it’s it’s common to have say, you know, get a radiological image, an X-ray or something, and um, that physician or that technician will then uh send it to someone else, some other expert, somewhere else, who doesn’t have the context of what that image is, and how might he or she, that that receiving physician, assess it? If we get sort of that double trigger of, “Hey, yeah, this looks weird”, um and it looks weird because it’s, you know, whatever kind of cancer or something, then you have that that kind of um uh inherent sort of arms-length kind of analysis that will, um, I think really help move things forward much better. [Susan Winterberg, 6:07:02] Absolutely. Yeah, the citizen science work in this field is absolutely amazing. Like we went out and just mapped all of it, all the different ones, like Skywatchers and Skinwalker and UAPx. There’s Nobel Prize stuff coming out of this, I’d be willing to bet in the next 20 to 30 years. Like the discoveries that they’re seeing, it’s so cool. Where is academic science? Where’s the National Science Foundation? This is like such exciting stuff. And yeah, but you can go into our report and take a look at like all the different sensors they’re using and the methods, and yeah, it’s such an interesting, to me it’s one of the most interesting things happening in science today, like outside the the, you know, the drones and the national security stuff. Like it’s it’s really this is such an exciting field. [Mike Gold, 6:07:38] You’re so spot on. There’s this chasm between citizen science and then the orthodox science that we’re seeing. And you got to like the price of citizen science as well. I like that price tag that we get from people volunteering uh their time. Um, let’s go to the really interesting question here. What are the applied sciences or breakthrough technologies that could someday come from the discoveries of UAP? Susan, do you have some thoughts? [Susan Winterberg, 6:08:09] Yeah, so this was a tough one. Uh, we spent a lot of time digging around in various DIRDs trying to figure out what people like Hal have been up to over the decades. Here’s what’s in the public domain. You can go onto the Defense Intelligence Agency’s FOIA reading room and kind of geek out if you really like exotic technology. Uh, but there’s a whole bunch of different uh things that that, you know, the government’s been studying, um, on uh sort of frontier physics and materials, and really interesting stuff in like neuroscience and consciousness, and so there’s a whole like range of different kinds of science. And I’m really curious, Mike, because I know you have some connection to this, but what do you think is most exciting or interesting from this? [Mike Gold, 6:08:48] Well, I’m biased, right? So, my grandfather worked on the Apollo program, my mother is uh still a STEM contractor education uh for NASA. We spent so much time on chemical propulsion and rocketry, it’s slow, it’s expensive, it’s dangerous, it’s… [Susan Winterberg, 6:09:08] Dirty. [Mike Gold, 6:09:09] It’s dirty. Yeah. Yeah, some of it could just be water, but… [Susan Winterberg, 6:09:11] I’m the environmental social person, I have to say it’s dirty. [Mike Gold, 6:09:14] Yeah, it can be okay, but if there is a better technology out there that we’re missing that could help us explore the universe in a much more robust, safe way, it’s such a shame that we would be unable to use it to say, nothing of the national security… [Susan Winterberg, 6:09:27] If we were able to replicate what the UAP are doing we could get from New York to London in 15 minutes. [Mike Gold, 6:09:32] Yeah, although I’m convinced United Airlines would still find a way to delay it, though. [Susan Winterberg, 6:09:36] Oh yeah, they will, for sure. We’d still have to pay the baggage fee, but… [Mike Gold, 6:09:39] Yeah, absolutely. So, that propulsion technology is the most exciting to me. Uh, and then we do talk about warp drive and, you know, the wormholes, etc. But when I was at NASA, uh, Sonny White was doing some of the, you know, real warp drive work. Elon Musk often talks about being interplanetary, right? Going to Mars. So, if something happened… [Visual, 6:10:00] Disclosure Foundation logo in top-left; Mike Gold, Jonathan Miller, and Susan Winterberg seated at a panel table. [Mike Gold, 6:10:00] on Earth we could survive. I’m a fan of SpaceX and all they’re doing, did not participate in the IPO. Um, but I think we need a technology breakthrough, a breakthrough technology like that to truly be an interplanetary species because I’m concerned it would take hundreds of years if not thousands for humanity to be able to survive independently on Mars. [Jonathan Miller, 6:10:20] And and we can we look, I mean it’s not a great proxy but it’s the best we have, like looking at say the patent records, um to see what might have been disclosed in in some ways. And there’s there’s, um, so for example, the the, so-called, so like UFO patents and others, like Salvatore Pais, um and others that have developed. And it’s, uh, interest, interesting to read. Um, I’m not vouching for, you know, veracity or or authenticity or anything, um but it’s that that, you know, how, how can we get better at using things and systems like the patent system, um which is, in my opinion, very nicely designed for saying, here, put it out there what you have and you get, you know, very clear rights to, to use what you define in reduction to method, um with the bigger vision, um is that it entices everybody else who’s like, “Oh, well, that’s how you do it, I’m going to invite, innovate something around that.” That’s where the patent system works really nicely because it engages more people, um to, to explore something. So, not saying that, that like say zero-point energy as a line of physics or something does exist or does not, um but that as we get better with some of the, the openness of what has been discovered, um it’s, there’s going to be a lot of, uh, so, happy accidents along the way, um the kind of penicillin kind of moments that are like, “Oh,” you know, and when, when scientists and engineers or someone in their garage like, “That’s weird,” um and they’re going to, you know, pull that thread, figuratively or literally, further, um we have these, these, useful discoveries. Um, and and, it’s, you know, it’s, that’s why we have things like synthetic biology. Um, it’s, it’s not just lab grade. I mean, it can start to industrialize the production of complex molecules because our living world is, that’s what it is doing all the time, is producing very amazing molecules. Um, how might we turn those into little bio-robots? I have colleagues that are doing just that. And, and if we keep pursuing that, there will be uses. Some of it, a lot of it will be still, still on the shelf because it’s weird, but others will be, uh, incredibly changing for us. [Mike Gold, 6:12:31] So can I ask you though relative to the UAP derived technologies? So at Redwire, we’ve got the roll-out solar arrays that are powering the International Space Station as we speak. We’re the first company to have manufactured a meniscus on the ISS. Who needs a meniscus? I know I could use one. Manufactured heart tissue, cardiovascular tissue on the ISS, liver tissue. We’re doing all these wonderful things. We would love to have some UAP derived technology. We’re talking about the benefits of it. For anyone who’s interested or companies, how would one go about getting access to such innovations or or technologies? Just curious, any thoughts there? Susan, if it… Susan? [Jonathan Miller, 6:13:14] I think, uh, slightly different take is that, um, with something, one of the problem sets that is not directly UAP related, but, um, is challenging, is how to how to make, um, United States and its allies manufacturing, um, better and better. Um, with sort of AI everywhere, what do some of the next sort of end states look like with that? Um, anomaly detection is very important in that. Um, but also, um, if we have very good artificial, you know, machines that are able to ingest all sorts of, uh, kinds of data in say a manufacturing context, it can, it reduces down to assuming everything is a reverse engineering challenge. Um, we have like nuclear submarines that are old now, and we’re trying to figure out, I have this like part, but the people who knew how to make it are basically long gone or retiring soon, or we have blueprints, I’m not sure how to actually machine the thing. So you start to assume, view every widget or exquisite UAP thing as as a reverse engineering problem. Um, that’s going to, in my opinion, help us to develop the better algorithms, the better computation resources, the better the better tolerance for, um, and management of uncertainty so that we can start to not only make stuff better in manufacturing context, but also hopefully start to continue to to try and triangulate around, um, the many flavors of UAP. [Mike Gold, 6:14:34] So having been at NASA and now at Redwire, we’re very concerned about losing the space race to China in Earth orbit, on the Moon. I believe that it is inevitable that the Chinese will outspend us in space. The only recourse we have is to out-entrepreneur the Chinese, which is why public-private partnerships are so important. It’s why the SpaceX IPO was so important to generate cash. For UAP derived technologies, how would you suggest that we engage investors, financing, and even the government to help support these technologies? [Susan Winterberg, 6:15:13] Yeah, for, for private investors or private companies, I when I bring up that this is something I’m working on, they’re first confused, and then they say, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” And then there’s always the same three questions that I get from them. The first one is, does the government have any actual intention of making this something available that the private sector can collaborate with them on if you’re not in one of these special access programs? Um, and is it on a dual-use pathway? So is the only customer of this technology intended to be the United States government for military asset purposes only, or is this something that, you know, we do want to have some of these propulsion technologies available to commercial space and to commercial aerospace and airlines, and you know, is there a bigger market to this? That’s kind of their first question, is like is there actually going to be an actual project or product we could build out of this? Um, the second thing they ask us, back one slide, is what is the technology readiness level? Uh, where is this? Is this just an idea um that’s sitting in a lab somewhere, in some physics equations on a page, or, you know, have you actually gone deeper and started doing prototyping? Because in order to bring the private sector in, there has to be a clear pathway to revenue generation. They’re not going to sit on a piece of technology that’s going to take 50 years to develop and keep pouring their capital in. I think somebody on the national security panel this morning sort of, I think, hit the nail on the head is that the problem with engaging for-profit companies in really deep R&D like this is that if it’s not generating revenue fast enough, they’re going to take their engineers off it, put them somewhere else on a more immediate contract coming in from the Pentagon they need to respond to, and the project is just going to sit there and die and wither, and the tech, the expertise is going to move on with their careers, and you’re going to lose, uh, your capabilities to be able to work on these technologies over time. So I think we have to be very careful when we say we want the private sector to take on this and kind of be clear, you know, if we’re higher up the TRL level or, you know, some of the technologies we looked at, like the materials sciences, I think in particular, there is a good pathway to, you know, transfer this over earlier in this, in the technology readiness process, uh, but some of the other stuff, you know, it may actually need to go all the way to like level nine to where it’s operational for the military before you can start thinking about the dual use. Part of that is, again, like de-risking it financially for the investors, uh, but it’s also, as we’ll talk about in a minute, it’s a national security concern to be moving some of these technologies outside of a very controlled environment like our military too early. We’ll talk about that more in a minute. [Mike Gold, 6:17:37] Yeah, and my concern, too, is if there is exotic technology out there that was shared with certain companies and not others, I have a strong suspicion the Federal Acquisition Regulations were not applied fully, and this could result in litigation that would be very interesting and might be a reason people don’t want this issue to come out or move forward. You mentioned national security. Why don’t we move to that? So, you know, Susan, maybe we can continue with you. What are the national security concerns around studying UAP? Of the six observables, which do you think are the most dangerous national security— because we’re always trying to hit this balance, and that’s what’s so challenging with the UAP topic, that we want transparency, we want accountability. At the same time, many of us are national security professionals, and we don’t want to threaten national security or put our our friends, brothers, and sisters in any danger. So, what do you see like that? [Susan Winterberg, 6:18:29] Yeah, I’ll just review for people that are sort of new to this topic, what the what the six observables are. So these are basically what do you just observe when you look at what we’re calling a UAP. So how do we know this is not a plane, not a helicopter, not a drone, not a ball of plasma light or whatever in the sky, or, uh, ball lightning, all these different things. Um, so it’s anti-gravity and positive lift, um, instantaneous acceleration, so it can just take off and just go vertical straight up, um, or it can just come, stop, turn at very high speeds, um, I can’t see it again. [Jonathan Miller, 6:19:00] Hypersonic velocity. [Susan Winterberg, 6:19:01] Yeah, hypersonic velocity. What are the next two? [Mike Gold, 6:19:04] Trans-medium travel. [Susan Winterberg, 6:19:05] Um, yeah, and… [Mike Gold, 6:19:06] Low observability. [Susan Winterberg, 6:19:07] And low observability. Yeah, basically, um, it’s, it’s these, these six observables. Um, and then biological effects, which I think they talked about earlier today, where, you know, there’s, there’s impacts to either the people that get too close to these, or to like plants and animals nearby where you can document those effects to sort of suggest that you were, sort of in contact with something, um, exotic. Um, so that’s where, you know, this does overlap obviously with national security because some things that are in that highest level of classification would be things like, um, signature management and visibility cloaking, um, or hypersonics where, you know, we don’t have the capability to be able to intercept, uh, if someone was to put a missile or something on one of these things. So I think that’s really kind of the biggest concern of that is like where does this intersect with, you know, these, the most serious, uh, national security capabilities. And sometimes that’s why this can’t sort of go out into dual use earlier. [Visual, 6:20:00] Three panelists sit at a table in front of a red curtain backdrop. The Disclosure Foundation logo is in the top-left corner. [Susan Winterberg, 6:20:00] because you do have to protect that capability first. At least until the point that there’s an effective countermeasure, uh, that you’re able to, to, you know, mitigate against that, which we can talk about if we have time later. We have done this successfully with other, uh, frontier technologies that the military has developed historically. So there is precedent for doing that. But, uh, I think we’re just not there yet with this, so. [Mike Gold, 6:20:20] Jamie, thoughts? [Jonathan Miller, 6:20:21] Uh, yeah. I mean, for, for each of these observables, um, individually they’re incredible, um, if more than one occurs, that’s really astounding, um, and so they’re all kind of like ‘Huh?’, um, now what do we do about it? Well, I think that it’s, it’s we have to, um, we have to, we have to, it’s helpful, um, if we there’s, there’s, there’s like say the, the, um, very rigid skeptic that’s like, ‘Oh’, like kind of like kind of poo-poos the, the, the thing. Like ‘Oh, that doesn’t make sense’, um, and discounts it. Kind of mental shutdown or mental foreclosure. Others, um, and you know, then then they think like Avi Loeb and Hal Puthoff also being in this camp of saying, ‘Well, what would need to be true for this to occur?’ Um, and so, for example, um, you know, it may not be self-fashioned as a, as a scientist or engineer, uh, but maybe you’re a welder, um, or you play with lasers or something. Um, I’ve literally asked folks who are incredible welders, who are incredible optics experts, and said, ‘Well, what would it take, um, let’s say hypothetically there’s some sort of like Tic Tac shaped object and there’s no seams on it, but, um, seemingly and with some sort of command it’s able to open up, you know, a, a doorway or, or window or something. What would need to be true for that to happen?’ And these kind of, um, my my opinion these kind of healthy thought experiments with folks who know their respective domains very well can start to say, ‘Well, okay, this needs to be like, you know, how do we get the atoms aligned and then sort of partition those out? Well, we might need to have some form of perfect control, like electromagnetic control, to be able to, to position those at the atomic level. Is it impossible? Um, uh, we don’t, that’s why we can’t say for sure that it’s impossible. We have no, we have no idea of how to do that, um, but that starts to put in like a little dashed line of possibilities, um, of where if we start to engage more of the, the, the research and development community, then we can start to, um, again have a potential happy accident that some welder is somewhere like thinking ‘Hmm’, you know, 10 years later, ‘how, maybe I don’t know how to make the Tic Tac thing, but I know how to do something else that has that idea of this kind of like perfect control mechanism, um, and then we would have a benefit as a, as a nation and, and as a, as a society. [Mike Gold, 6:22:33] Can I pick at a word that you’re using: ‘we’? I think the UAP issue redefines what ‘we’ means. Really two issues on Capitol Hill that can be bipartisan, I think, bring us together in a unique way: space exploration and UAP. Now, they’re the only issues where you’re gonna see Tim Burchett and AOC working together. And it goes beyond uniting us as Americans; this should unite the world. And when I was at NASA, it was the privilege really of my lifetime to develop, lead, implement the Artemis Accords, which now has 67, excuse me, 68 countries as of this morning, with Botswana joining. And it’s so important that we push back against this myth that I know no one in this room believes, but that UAP is an American phenomenon, that it only occurs here. When I was a member of the UAP Independent Study Team, we had CNES, the French space agency, briefing us. They were actually taking it seriously. This is a phenomenon that occurs globally, and I think it would be wonderful, as we talk about sensors, that we go out to all Artemis Accords signatories and ask them to share UAP with us. We’re not just talking about national security; we’re talking about global security for us as a species, and I hope we reach out in that fashion. Let’s move over to implementation. So we’ve talked about a lot of ideas, a lot of hopes, a lot of actions we think should be taken, but what has to happen to make this progress real? [Susan Winterberg, 6:24:08] Yeah, so if you look at the slide that’s up there now, uh, this is what we’ve been, I think, we’ve been talking about all morning is how do we get this out of these Special Access Programs and in, to, you know, bring more people into this conversation. And I think what’s great about this is that we already have that architecture in place. We have an amazing dual-use finance and entrepreneurship ecosystem here in the United States and across our allies. And if you think about security, really, it’s a spectrum. So at the highest level are these, uh, waived Special Access Programs where only a few people in Congress may even know about it, and a few hundred scientists maybe. You know, all the way down to what we talked about earlier, like full open, in, innovation science where you just take the information out there, you do prizes and challenges, and anybody from anywhere in the world can contribute. And, you know, maybe if we put X numbers of billions towards this, we could crack this thing in 10 years, but we’re going to completely lose control of the technology if we do that. So we have to find this nice middle ground, and I think it’s really great that we have all these other levels, uh, where we can really customize this. And, you know, as we get, as I mentioned before, as we get more of the safeguarding in place, we can open it up to even lower, sort of lower down the chain, going from, you know, the classified, to the controlled unclassified, uh, to sort of the blended models. Like DARPA has a really good blended model where you can bring people in in some parts and not in others, um, to to just sort of like academic labs where it’s just being restricted to US citizens and a basic background check. So depending on the sensitivity level of the technology, there are so many different, uh, ways that we could structure this going forward. [Jonathan Miller, 6:25:34] And, and there’s something with, um, like on the, the dual-use aspect of, and, and in this case, dual-use, um, I’ll use that as like, so, the government-oriented, usually like sort of military-oriented, and, um, and like a commercial kind of thing. That, um, anything could be considered dual-use. A scissors, you know, set of scissors could be considered dual-use, um, if you ask random people, like, ‘Hey, what do you think if we gave that person on the street a set of scissors? Good, bad, don’t care? How should we regulate it?’ Um, it there’s a lot of like ‘it depends’ elements to that. And I think that’s something that, um, we are getting better at sort of, um, appreciating how, how complex that can be, why we, why just say full open of, of, you know, here’s all the patents and research papers that have been classified for decades and decades, why that could be problematic, um, right? We, we, I think we can appreciate that. Um, but also it, it makes it so that we, that, yes, a scissors, set of scissors can save lives. It can do a lot of good, too. So, how do we get better at that? Um, we, we have some ways. [Mike Gold, 6:26:44] You know, Jamie, I talked about the stigma a little bit, particularly in academia, and we talk about getting new institutions engaged, and getting existing institutions engaged in the topic. I’m just curious, your personal experience sitting there at MIT: have you faced pushback for engaging this topic? Have there been threats? Have they been open? Because my concern is over-classification and over-compartmentalization. And by the way, we see this far beyond the UAP issue. As a defense contractor, nothing hurts our national security like the over-breadth, over-use of classification. It’s counterproductive to national security, and UAP is a great example of that. And the concern is we don’t have MIT engaged, we don’t have Harvard—well, maybe not Harvard—we don’t have MIT engaged. And how do we get those institutions to take the issue seriously, and what was your own personal experience in this, and then we’ll go to Susan with you. [Jonathan Miller, 6:27:43] Yeah, thank you for asking and, and, um, Susan, Susan, and, and, I could launch list all the names, I just… you know, Victoria, Sri, Ryan, Tim, Mike, etc., who have, have helped to make, um, make our, our confronting unknowns independent activity a thing, um, and so, much appreciated. But in terms of my experience, um, and, and sort of interest and receptive to, you know, openness to things we don’t know, um, and, and recognizing that and how to approach that, um, decades long, but over the past year or so, looking at how might we, um, and the time is right in my opinion to, to, um, run a program within the institute during a special period called Independent Activities Period, um, it’s in January at MIT, um, and it’s a way to try something new. In, in my opinion, in a crucible of research and innovation and deployment of new technologies, um, so where we’re, we’re very good at working on interdisciplinary problems, um, and multidisciplinary, you know. And so, how do we phrase that? How, I mean, we’re, we’re not like, and I we positioned it as like, well, it’s not like saying, trying to try to figure out the origins. Is this China? These little green men? These are like future humans or from another dimension? Maybe. I don’t know. But the focus then is on, um, something we can all care about, like national security, advanced technology development, and safe aerospace. Knowing that the big kahuna target area is like the challenge area is UAP. But walking that back, what do I do tomorrow to start to make headways on, on that? And it’s to look at how do we, um, we broadly, and we as individual experts in our respective fields, start to do sensemaking. Because in my opinion, that’s a teachable leadership skill. Whether you want to go build an e-commerce company or, or create a dog-walking app, or you want to figure out where aliens are, or how UAP can do multiple different kinds of observables. Um, either way, you’re doing the, the exercise, the practice of sensemaking. I think that’s teachable, and, uh, to choose a line that we, we, we have from the program is, um, ‘your mind is a critical system, so use it, um, learn how to, to, to, to… [Visual, 6:30:00] Mike Gold, Jordan Flowers, and Susan Winterberg sit at a panel table with the Disclosure Foundation logo on the wall. [Jordan Flowers, 6:30:00] and improve the mind thinking. Um, everybody can do that. And then in your own expertise, it’ll, it’ll play out. It’s going to be an empowerment thing. Susan? [Susan Winterberg, 6:30:09] Yeah, and I think the best way to engage academia, um, especially in the current science funding landscape, is create named funds for studying the biggest mysteries, the biggest anomalies in these fields. And this, this touches so many different fields. Physics is obviously the big one, but you know what the other big one is? Earth science. Oh my god, we’re going to learn so much about this planet and the other life that’s here today, that’s always been here, that was here in the past. There’s so many amazing things that we’re going to, that are going to come out of this research. Consciousness, neuroscience. The world is going to change so much after disclosure. Um, and we need scientists to be involved, because, you know, our current president, or whoever is next, whenever this, or the next one, whoever, you know, comes up to the stage someday and says it, no one’s going to believe it until, you know, they see the peer-reviewed science, and it’s going to come out of that community, that, you know, this is real, it’s been validated. So, you know, we start, we need to start just by saying that this is a valid area of science, um, and we are going to fund it. Um, and there’s lots of different models also quickly that you can do besides just academia. There’s a one called Focus Research Organizations, uh, where basically it’s almost like a DARPA-style challenge. You set up a non-profit, and then over like five to seven years, with maybe $20 to $70 million in funding, you tackle a really big problem. So that could be like mapping, uh, the connectome of the brain. Or they have one now called Echo Labs, which is looking at, um, like, a multi-sensor fusion monitoring, um, forests. So there’s different kinds of like ways you could organize this that, rather than it being stuck in some, you know, SAP program, or in a corporate silo that’s going to get cut next time there’s a quarterly downsizing, you know, we have dedicated funding to specifically solve these problems with scientists that want to devote themselves full time for five to seven years to really tackle some of the big challenges that we put up here today. So I think that really is the call to action, is that this needs to be a priority, you know, for the United States government and our science funders, that this is the greatest, you know, scientific discovery of our lifetimes, maybe of all time, and we need to fund it, support it appropriately. [Mike Gold, 6:32:11] Well said. And speaking of science, and with apologies in advance for running a few minutes over, I am from the space industry, blowing up schedules is what we do. [Mike Gold, 6:32:29] I do want to take a moment to talk about an extraordinary project that’s being done under the auspices of the Disclosure Foundation, where it’s my pleasure to lead an effort where we are going to go through the NASA archives to conduct a review for UAP. [Mike Gold, 6:32:56] Thank you so much. This was a recommendation that was made explicitly by the NASA UAP Independent Study Team. It was later supported by the research director for UAP at NASA, but has not been implemented. We are going to solve that issue and conduct a comprehensive review of what we got open source. Now, look, we all spend a lot of time declassifying data, going after things that are hidden, secrets. But there is a treasure trove of open, available data that could help us unlock this mystery. In the first tranche of material that was released by the Department of War, there was the image of triangular craft, or lights in a triangular formation that was released. That image had been sitting in the archives for decades, almost a half century, but was ignored. And this is why it’s so important for us to delve in what’s likely a treasure trove of data in what’s just publicly available, and to leverage new technologies—artificial intelligence, machine learning—to be able to conduct a comprehensive review. What’s the worst that happens here? We discover some sort of incredible new scientific phenomena, we discover adversarial spacecraft. And boy, do we ever have a, a murder’s row, the Avengers of UAP science, beginning with Dr. Maaneli Derakhshani, who’s here. Let’s have a round of applause. Maaneli, where is he? There he is, standing up. [Visual, 6:34:44] Maaneli Derakhshani stands up in the audience and is applauded. [Mike Gold, 6:34:49] And by the way, you talk about the scientific stigma, there is someone who lost their job, again, not for saying that UAP is extraterrestrial. I watched the interview that Maaneli did, he was almost lawyer-like in avoiding coming to a conclusion, but they fired him anyway. And I am so grateful to him and his courage, and people like him, who are willing to stand up to academic orthodoxy, to fight for the truth, to fight for accountability, and to fight for the scientific method. Begin with study, get the conclusion. And he’s done some tremendous work looking at anomalies on the moon. Second, and unfortunately, she’s not here, but here in spirit, is Dr. Beatriz Villarroel. Let’s have a round of applause for Beatriz. [Visual, 6:35:38] Wide shot of the Kennedy Caucus Room showing the audience and the stage. [Mike Gold, 6:35:39] Now I talk about the struggles with academia, Beatrice got peer-reviewed research on UAP. How often do we ever see that? And by going through the NASA archives, we can help bolster the work that she’s done, look at more anomalies, and, you know, more than anything, what we’ve got in the archives now, that’s about to increase exponentially. We have a terrific, young, energetic, dynamic new Administrator of NASA in Jared Isaacman. And if anyone has been following, he has said, we are going to land on the moon monthly. Monthly. Every month. And with the sensors, and the cameras that we have on those spacecraft, we will be able to gather data in cis-lunar space, on the moon, the likes of which we have never seen before. So I am so excited of working with Beatrice, of working with Maaneli, Dr. Travis Taylor—where are your Travis Taylor fans out there? Travis, we held our first organizational meeting, Travis was telling me about finding Saturn blueprints in friends’ barns in Huntsville. Like, this is the state, unfortunately, sometimes, of the archives. But we’re so excited to implement this very important recommendation of the UAP Task Force and to collaborate with our friends at NASA, who have been just wonderful, and to brief the FBI, the UAP Task Force, here in Congress, the public, and to leverage citizen science. That, I am just describing the leadership team, the real work will be done by the citizen scientists, as well as corporations that will be volunteering their capabilities with AI and ML. We are so, so excited to be beginning this effort. So with that, I want to thank again the Disclosure Foundation, I want to thank our two fantastic panelists, thanks to everyone here in the room. Let’s make everyday Disclosure Day! [Visual, 6:37:47] The panelists stand up, gather their papers, and exit the stage. [Visual, 6:38:03] Wide shot showing Jordan Flowers at the podium, a TV screen displaying “Financial Impacts”, and Pippa Malmgren and Matthew Tuttle walking onto the stage. [Jordan Flowers, 6:38:03] All right, we are moving into our final panel. Uh, we’re going to talk about financial impacts, risks, and opportunities. Joining me… are Pippa Malmgren, economist, geopolitical macro strategist, former special assistant to the President for economic policy at the National Economic Council, and Matthew Tuttle, the CEO of Tuttle Capital Management. [Jordan Flowers, 6:38:38] Thank you so much for joining us today. Um, I am really excited even though apologies running a little bit uh shorter on time than we were hoping for. Um, [Pippa Malmgren, 6:38:49] such is life. [Visual, 6:38:45] Close-up shot of Jordan Flowers, Pippa Malmgren, and Matthew Tuttle sitting at the panel table. [Jordan Flowers, 6:38:50] such is life. Let’s talk about the uh the narrative out there that oh, if we were to disclose uh what we know about non-human intelligence, that uh the markets would crash, uh people, the riots in the streets, uh dogs and cats living together, um, you know, when I’ve been interviewed about this, as a having a background in in finance and investments, um, I I I try to counterbalance the narrative by saying, okay, let’s look at some facts. Uh, how much did the markets crash when Trump issued his executive order about releasing uh everything we have on alien intelligence? Uh, they were flat to up. Uh, what happened in each of the latest releases of data? They were flat to up. What’s happened since uh 2017 or 2023? Um, uh, if we had had our money in the S&P 500, you would have done quite well. Um, those are facts. I’m not sure, you know, what the sort of the R-squared, if you will, uh is on that, how much explanatory power those facts have, but those are [Jordan Flowers, 6:40:00] … [Visual, 6:40:00] … [Jordan Flowers, 6:40:45] … [Jordan Flowers, 6:40:00] …still facts that have to be contended with. Um, and not dealing with a circular narrative that, oh, this is, um, disruptive, therefore, there will be financial calamity and there will be financial calamity because it’s disruptive. This sort of circular reasoning drives me bananas. Um, so Pippa, what I’d like to do is discuss, uh, you have an incredible… I first, uh, learned about you, actually, through the Grant Williams podcast because I’m a huge finance nerd and I, uh, subscribe to that. Uh, your conversations with him about the global macro strategies are wonderful. Um, feel free to invite Grant, also, to be a part of the Disclosure Foundation. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:40:44] [laughs] [Jordan Flowers, 6:40:45] Um, and, you know, so can you… I’d like you to tee up sort of the global macro perspective on this and maybe explain for the audience what that means. And then Matt, I’m super interested with you as a market practitioner with an ETF, which stands for Exchange Traded Fund, which is a financial product you can invest in, anybody in this room can invest in that, um, what your… how you’re tactically, uh, approaching this subject with your, um, with your firm. Um, so please, Pippa. Thank you. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:41:19] Thank you, and thank you for bringing us all together. This is quite an extraordinary gathering. Um, look, humanity is at this extraordinary moment where we are expanding our scientific discovery, our technological innovation at a speed and scale that hasn’t really been experienced perhaps since the Industrial Revolution. We are effectively putting prosthetics deep into space that will extend the capacity of our eyes to see far into the galaxy, and also deep into subspace to see what is happening at the level of atoms, electrons, and even subatomic particles. Naturally, as we expand our spectrum of perception, we are seeing more things that we didn’t either acknowledge before, or know about before. And so, there’s a kind of ontological issue arising just from this discovery process. In markets, in financial markets, and indeed for civilization, it is this process of scientific discovery and technological innovation that raises standards of living, that allows us to solve problems, and therefore, it is civilizationally critical that we do this. If we look at the issue this way, then the problem we have is not that the markets panic, it is the obstacles to the discovery process. It is, perhaps harsh to say, but maybe important to say, as a financial market person and as someone who has worked in the national security world, as was mentioned earlier in the day, the congressional staffer who is the obstacle to progress is, is the national security problem. The scientist who refuses to allow scientist, science to be used to address these matters is the national security problem. And in fact, these attitudes and people are a civilizational drag. So, this is critical for markets, because if we’re going to maintain the pace of discovery and innovation, we have to remove these obstacles to progress. We have to stop allowing the people with the greatest skepticism to define the speed at which we proceed, and instead allow those making the greatest advances to define the speed at which we proceed. As someone who has worked in geopolitics as well, it’s quite extraordinary that we look at something like the current geopolitical stress over the Strait of Hormuz, and we think that’s a serious problem, which it is. But, here we have a world where it seems that we’re perhaps firing on phenomena that we don’t understand. And as the daughter of an American ambassador who was long involved in the dialogue with the Soviet Union, we usually talk to our opponents. Firing on something we don’t fully understand might not be the best way to begin a conversation with something that might possibly be intelligent, or maybe even more intelligent than us. [Visual, 6:44:52] Audience applauds [Pippa Malmgren, 6:44:58] [laughs] But not only that, this comes to a bigger issue, which is central to the markets right now, is the… which is the definition of what is intelligence. And of course, we are finding that extraordinary things, from slime to mushrooms, have intelligence. We are surrounded by non-human intelligence. We’ve just used artificial intelligence to crack one of the whale languages. And what was so amazing is that we found out these whales have a nickname for the marine biologists that study them. And those marine biologists were so excited about their nickname. They’re like, “What’s the nickname for me?” And I’m like, did anyone ask the whale what it has to say? No. Because our ego is in the way. So, if we can’t even recognize that we are living in an environment that is teeming with non-human intelligence, how can we begin the discussion of what constitutes the kind of non-human intelligence that might be a national security risk? Very difficult. So, this is why I say the issue for the markets is not the sudden discovery that all of this is real. And when I talk to my daughter, she said to me, when I said, “I’m first going to start writing about this issue, that some serious things are happening in the US Congress,” she said, “Mom, everybody already knows.” I said, “What do you mean they already know?” She said, “It’s your generation that doesn’t have a clue.” Young people have an iPhone in their pocket that has more computational power than we needed to get a human on the Moon. They are using artificial intelligence, and they are making discoveries at an extraordinary pace. It’s perhaps a generational issue that the older generation is still stuck in ways of thinking that are no longer applicable. So, I just put that on the table, that we need this pace of scientific discovery and technological innovation to continue. We are discovering new materials that we never knew about before, we’re discovering new definitions of what is sentient, what is life. Artificial intelligence is fascinating because we are racing towards artificial general intelligence and putting massive sums of money behind it, while at the same time trying to pretend there’s no other non-human intelligence. That does seem ironic. And that is the central issue right now in the financial markets, as we know. Day-to-day, we’re all looking at, you know, have the markets overbought artificial intelligence, but not able to discuss non-human intelligence. How interesting. [Jordan Flowers, 6:47:51] Do you… so there’s this, um, people use the term petrodollar, right? Oh, it’d be the end of the petrodollar regime if we were to come out with this technology that would have, uh, whatever, boundless energy, uh, for example. Um, but we’re already, it appears we’re already moving towards that with artificial intelligence, which you mentioned, which everyone or, you know, on balance seems to be fine with. And we are, or we’re doing it. Let’s put it that way. Regardless of if, if people seem to be fine with it. Um, how does that also, as we move into a post… do you think that moves into a post-petrodollar situation where we have to rethink the economics of scarcity, uh, and how do you relate these two things? These words are kind of used together in AI, UAP, and finance land, so I’m curious how you, uh, think about that, uh, and differentiate it. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:48:47] Yeah. Let me just give you an example. In Austin, Texas, we have already a company, uh, that, I won’t say the name because… Well, no, it doesn’t matter. We’re not in a financial market context here. Anyway, Oklo Atomics. Very interesting. They have created a small modular reactor with fewer than 300 engineers in less than 365 days. So the traditional view that to create a new nuclear power plant is 30 billion dollars and 30 years has just been completely decimated by what they’re doing. That’s happened in part because the governor of the state just said, “Go.” So, that’s already here. Then we already are seeing other companies, Valar Atomics in California, that have created small modular reactors using TRISO fuel that are movable. So now you can have a nuclear power plant wherever you want it. You can put it in a plane and shift it to some other location. Nuclear fusion, which everyone has said is 50 years away, is no longer 50 years away. And as artificial intelligence does millions if not billions… [Visual, 6:50:00] Panel of three speakers with the “Disclosure Foundation” logo in the top-left corner. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:50:00] of simulations and we create the new materials necessary for containment, that’s making immense progress too. So the old argument that the UAP technology is potentially so destabilizing to society because it might drop the price of energy to nothing is already happening anyway. And honestly as an economist, if you’re going to give me elements to play with, very inexpensive energy is a gift. It is a massive driver of growth and productivity, so wonderful for the markets. And for those that are in traditional energy sources, there are a bunch of other competitors too. We’re starting to see space space solar power as something, you know, already we have Google saying in three years we’ll be doing that for data centers that are off-earth. So this is no longer science fiction. These are happening in real time. So a lot of the old excuses why oh my gosh markets will panic, are just literally disintegrating before our eyes. [Jordan Flowers, 6:51:20] So, Matt, how does this translate into actionable opportunity for you as a as a market practitioner? I am assuming that your ETF isn’t just a 100% allocated to naked puts on on the market and betting on complete and utter failure. Um, you know how do you translate that? How do you think about what are the um what are the opportunities, the risks? What are the… I think about this in terms of a lot in terms of off balance sheet liabilities as well as off balance sheet assets. So, and maybe you can help the audience understand like what that means and how that’s integrated into your market philosophy. [Matthew Tuttle, 6:52:04] Yeah. So, you know, first off we don’t believe that disclosure leads to a market selloff. We do teach people you should always have tail risk protection. This is not a tail risk as I see it unless disclosure is, you know, hey they’re here and oh, remember Independence Day. You know, that that’s a different story. But I don’t I don’t see that. So we’re looking at this as thematic investors. And the best way to make money on a theme is you’ve got to be early. You’ve got to be in it when nobody else is thinking about it. So, you know, coming from where I sit, I look at the Tic Tac video where everyone else is who’s flying that thing? Which is really interesting, and it’s it’s an important question. For me, it’s what’s the power source? Because it’s nothing like anything that that we know of that exists. And that could create the biggest investment opportunity that I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been doing this since 1981, I’ve seen the internet, we’re seeing what’s going on with AI right now, but when you look at the potential of cheap, free, whatever it is, energy, that is entirely transformational. And so what we teach investors is something we call the thematic investment hierarchy. So you start off with, all right, what is the theme? So if I look at it, all right, the theme is free or near-free energy. Propulsion is also interesting to me. And, you know, and I’m sure there are a bunch of other technologies as well, but the free energy one or the near-free energy is the one that’s really transformational. So we start off with, who are the obvious winners? And the obvious winners, you know, barring lawsuits, people going to jail, the defense primes. But then you’ve got to look at it beyond that. So, you know, if this technology does get surfaced, if it gets made available for commercial use, what other companies are going to have to be brought in? So who are the suppliers to the winners? Who are the suppliers to the suppliers? Who are the… and you keep peeling that onion down and down and down. And that’s how we look at it in our UFOD ETF. And, you know, again I’m I’m looking at this as potentially the most explosive opportunity that I’ve ever seen, so I’m I’m excited about it. [Jordan Flowers, 6:54:46] Thank you. And you know, yeah. Uh, so at the Disclosure Foundation, we I’ve tried to leverage my background on Wall Street to really like penetrate the street with this conversation. So we have uh we’ve gone to uh very large investment banks, we’ve gone to very large investment managers to try and have this conversation. Part of our mission is education and advocacy, and so we want to be able to go into the centers of power in New York City and say, “Hey, you really should be paying attention to this. It is in your own best interest to pay attention to this.” Um, so what conversations have you been having, if any, um with these asset managers? What would you say to them? And um uh well yeah, let’s just leave it there. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:55:33] Yeah, look, asset managers are already on this and briefings are already happening. Um, they… I mean, it was at the SALT hedge fund conference that you know, Karl Nell made his sort of initial announcement. Um, the key thing is again, investors are trying to figure out exactly what you’re doing, where is that performance opportunity? So a major question is, number one, will China announce it first? So we may have our hang-ups. We may have our view that the US government has the answers, which actually I’m not so convinced. I think they may have a lot of data, they may have a lot of insight, but do they have answers? And maybe we actually already have a lot of answers in the general public. In the, as was discussed in the previous session, citizen scientists to just people who have had experience with this phenomena. I find it very interesting and strange that here in the United States we have based our entire legal and justice system on the importance of the witness, except on this subject, in which case all the witnesses are crazy. [Jordan Flowers, 6:56:48] You are so right. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:56:49] Right. [Jordan Flowers, 6:56:49] And the market doesn’t care how you define evidence or how you define data. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:56:51] The market doesn’t care. So, they’re just looking for who’s got the answer to this thing, and that may come out of the Middle East where they do not have the hang-up that we do have in the United States, either from a national security perspective or from a kind of religious theological perspective as well. There’s a greater openness, and frankly, the rest of the world did not have a Cartesian split. So they didn’t separate mysticism from science. They can see the world in a more holistic way and therefore study it more comprehensively. So financial markets are just looking for what you’re looking for, which is who’s got the answer to this, and that’s where we want to invest the dollars behind it. And I think that here in the US, we may be getting too hung up in this idea that government is to disclose to us. Especially since, by the way, we’ve already had like at least four press conferences, one from the White House saying, “It’s real.” But somehow people haven’t clocked it, right? And you’re like, “How many times do you have to be told?” They’re looking for something more. So, I think the more likely source of the answer is going to be crowdsourcing. [Matthew Tuttle, 6:58:09] And I I wish… I wish I was talking to the people you’re talking to because everyone I talk to thinks I’m crazy. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:58:17] I’ll need to introduce you, right. [Matthew Tuttle, 6:58:19] Please. Yeah, no, I I see the the asset management industry as one really where people don’t take risks, and I mean, except for like, you know, the hedge funds. But, you know, they want to stick around the consensus. So they’ll get into this once it’s already out and once a lot of the opportunity has passed them by. I mean, they’ll be forced to, but, you know, the people I’m talking to by and large are just looking at kind of what’s in front of them, you know, it’s AI, it’s memory, it’s photonics. They’re not looking three to five years out, unfortunately. Which, again, creates opportunities for those of us who do. [Pippa Malmgren, 6:58:58] You know, there is an issue with, um, compression of time. So, it used to be that fund managers waited until an idea was commercialized, it had cash flows, it had profits, it had customers, and they left venture capital to the guy to a different group would do deep tech when you didn’t know whether it would actual, actually work. But now the time from an idea or discovery to commercialization is so compressed that even the big fund managers no longer can wait, they’re having to jump in earlier. And we’re talking about paradigm-changing ways of thinking here, so even if they’re not investing, they have to understand the world in a different way than they did before. So this is why I think a conversation is absolutely happening in the financial sector, but maybe perhaps always gently, quietly, just making sure everybody’s kind of on board with the conversation so… [Pippa Malmgren, 7:00:00] …and they don’t think you’re crazy. [Visual, 7:00:00] A panel discussion featuring Jordan Flowers, Pippa Malmgren, and Matthew Tuttle, with a “Disclosure Foundation” logo on the wall behind them. [Matthew Tuttle, 7:00:01] I think… oh, sorry. I think I’m the only one who’s out there being loud about it. [Pippa Malmgren, 7:00:06] No, not at all. Not at all. [Matthew Tuttle, 7:00:07] But then again, I’ve done like inverse Cramer or inverse Cathy Wood. I don’t mind… I don’t mind ruffling feathers. [Jordan Flowers, 7:00:13] I love the fact that you are the inventor of the inverse Cramer, uh, ETF. I’m a like value investor by training and that just delights me to no end that our paths have overlapped. Um, so let’s talk about actionable steps. Uh, you know, I’ve tried to take these, uh, ideas and think about how to leverage them in those conversations with, um, with the large financial institutions, and I’ve tried to, in doing so, like appeal to their interests. One example of that for me is, hey, you know, you’ve got, uh, this 500-page credit agreement. Um, you’ve got this, uh, you know, 100-page insurance agreement. In these agreements, you’ve got your, uh, you know, your your SEC filings where you have to, uh, enumerate your risks, right? Uh, it seems to me it would be so easy, such low-hanging fruit, given the fact base we have from the disclosures that have already happened, it would be so easy to just add in extra protections into your risk section. It would be, or an insurance policy. Insurance policies have these, um, you know, these, uh, language in there about, uh, protection against war, against acts of God. You know, I, my joke in these meetings is like I think you should add language about like acts of gods into like these insurance documents so, because you know that if someone, uh, if this happens, someone is going to file a claim in court that says that this contract is null and void because of this, um, uh, because of this sort of act of god type risk. What do you, that’s an example of like, how do you take something actionable and, uh, and do it in the market. What, what do you guys think are specific actionable, uh, steps or catalysts, if you will, for, uh, for thinking about this? [Visual, 7:00:35] Matthew Tuttle drinks from a beverage can. [Matthew Tuttle, 7:02:09] Yeah, I mean two things. First off, as I said before, I think you should always have tail risk protection in your portfolio. Regardless of what’s going on. How you do that, beyond the scope of, of what we’re talking about, but you should always have that. The second piece is, you know, if I’m wrong about zero-point energy and this being an investment opportunity, you’ve still got the theme of the convergence trade, where old kind of military was big tanks, big ships, fast plane, you know, now that’s being replaced by drones, anti-drones, lasers, eventually robots, all integrated with AI. So you’re seeing this convergence between traditional military and all the different aspects of AI. So I do think that is something that should be in your portfolio as well. [Pippa Malmgren, 7:03:07] I think markets, too, are trying desperately to discount markets are very good at discounting the future, there’s no question about that. But maybe having a hard time with simple problems, like: Are these drones earthly peer competitors? If yes, then our inability to do anything about it presents a different risk scenario for how geopolitics may play out than if we were dealing with something that is not our peer adversaries. One has to think about that piece of this puzzle. Um, I think as well in financial markets, you mentioned sort of the money side of it. And one of the interesting things happening right now, which has been announced by the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, who was my deputy in the White House, is we are shifting the entire economy onto digital rails, onto accounting systems where we have full transparency and clarity of what transactions happened when and where. The way the American budget has been managed for many decades is through incredible obscurity, incredible opacity, incredible lack of explanation as to where has the money gone. If a lot of the money has gone into these sorts of issues, then how will we manage as that becomes more transparent? Can we continue to have the investment in this kind of cutting-edge technology without having to have black budgets, black programs, SAPs, etc.? Because those are going to become infinitely more difficult in a totally transparent environment. [Visual, 7:03:15] Matthew Tuttle drinks from a beverage can. [Visual, 7:03:26] Audience member passes in front of the camera. [Visual, 7:04:53] A man in a suit approaches the panel table and places a note in front of Jordan Flowers. [Jordan Flowers, 7:04:55] Yeah, I I really, I’m enjoying integrate, trying to integrate what each of you are saying. It’s reminding me of conversations that I’ve had with Anna Brady-Estevez. So, Anna Brady is, uh, on our, sitting in the audience somewhere. Uh, and, uh, you know, she has a background in this. She has a firm called American Deep Tech. She’s, uh, on the advisory board of the Disclosure Foundation. And your thoughts about, as as Anna and I have talked, it it it, uh, it echoes those conversations because I think what’s currently being underestimated is the technology development cycle. So you have the rapid compression of going from scientific research to R&D to developing a beta or an MVP, a minimum viable product, and then scaling. Like, in the conversations I’ve had with Anna and what’s going on in her world, it’s like people are, uh, you know, concerned about that we’re we’re way far out on the curve. And because of these updates, that curve is really compressing in terms of like, you know, what we would call like the J-curve of of that investment. Um, does that resonate with you? [Pippa Malmgren, 7:06:01] Yeah. No, completely. And what’s very concerning, um, and I think two, two elements of this. What’s very concerning is it’s hard for markets to discount information if information is not being put in front of them. So I thought it was interesting here earlier today when we had members of the mainstream media here and they were given the opportunity to ask questions, and there was total silence. And I thought, you know, if the President of the United States walked in and his socks didn’t match, they would be leaping over each other to ask him questions about his mental well-being. But faced with something that is extraordinarily consequential for the course of human history, not a single question. [Jordan Flowers, 7:06:50] And contrast that with what was happening outside the room, just for the audience that, uh, in, for the folks that aren’t here today, quite the contrast. [Pippa Malmgren, 7:06:59] Right. So the thing is, media needs to report what is happening. We have, for the first time in history, the President of the United States has ordered the declassification of many, many decades of history. This is very consequential. To have it not reported is also consequential, and I would like to just shout out to Leslie Kean who wrote, you know, an article that totally changed our understanding. [Visual, 7:07:23] The audience and panelists applaud. [Pippa Malmgren, 7:07:30] So, this is a problem for markets if the media will not report what is actually happening. Number one. Number two, we have extremely senior scientists with extremely high-level security clearances, both in the United States and in China, who seem to be going missing. They, statistically it seems highly unlikely that all these people disappear all at once under strange circumstances. For people in markets, the concern is, okay, are we in a situation where there’s an obstacle to the technological process that’s so severe that people are being removed? That’s a serious problem for civilization, for financial markets. The fact that it took a long time to even get any investigation is a problem for the ability of markets to discount the future. And honestly, when we talked earlier about, um, when we talked earlier about the obstacles, I would just leave on the table that every time someone blocks progress, whether it’s refusing to process paperwork or whether it’s by making threats and doing intimidation, this should be traceable. One should be able to go back and ask: Who pulled the pension from the whistleblower? Who asked for a particular outcome? Who organized either the character assassination or the actual assassination? These are not small issues in a world where the technology that is being invented by humans may challenge wherever this technology came from from non-humans. And maybe the last thing to say to draw people’s attention to is the Genesis Mission. I think very few people even know about it, but fundamentally, it’s all about the White House effectively ordering that all of the national labs, where so much of the research and work at the cutting edge of technology has happened since the Second World War, they have never had that data open to review internally, people don’t talk to each other, let alone across the labs. But the Genesis Mission is about bringing artificial intelligence, connecting the data within the labs and across the labs, and I think in that process, we’re going to discover a whole bunch of [Visual, 7:10:00] Panel with Jordan Flowers, Pippa Malmgren, and Matthew Pines sitting at a table under a “Disclosure Foundation” logo. [Pippa Malmgren, 7:10:00] new technologies. But against the backdrop of are we also seeing a whole bunch of our most important scientists suddenly disappear? This is a national security issue. It is a civilizational issue. [Jordan Flowers, 7:10:16] Thank you. Um [Jordan Flowers, 7:10:22] Matt, we’re we’re a little over time. Uh we have this room until 4:30 but I wanted to give you uh uh any final thoughts you have uh for the audience. [Matthew Pines, 7:10:31] Yeah, just uh to what Pippa said, you know, analysts can’t model what they don’t know. And there’s so much out there that is unknown. And again, that’s that’s where in my mind, we’ve got a massive opportunity, you know, if you’re a thematic investor. [Jordan Flowers, 7:10:51] Roger that. Thank you so much for having this conversation, and I hope we can have many more about this. Thank you. [Visual, 7:10:58] Wide shot of the room showing the panel concluding, with a presentation slide showing “Social & Financial Impacts” on a screen to the left. [Visual, 7:11:17] Jordan Flowers stands at the podium with a United States Senate seal. [Jordan Flowers, 7:11:18] Um so we have just a few minutes left here. We have this room for until about 4:30 before they before we get kicked out. Um I want to dedicate uh my closing remarks here to uh discussing something we haven’t talked about much uh yet today and something I wish was talked about uh more here and more broadly, which is whistleblower support and whistleblower protection. [Jordan Flowers, 7:11:54] So our organization um we’ve had uh a wonderful team of volunteers who has done this work. We have had extremely limited resources um and we are finally coming with events like this uh to try and make a difference, to try and advance the conversation. And now that we are in a position to do so, um we we are very excited uh to, you know, the three parts of our mission are there’s uh policy research, right, there’s legal, uh there’s uh litigation for FOIA, there’s whistleblower support, uh pro bono representation, and then education and advocacy. So on the whistleblower support portion of that, um that is something we take seriously and take broadly. And we are very excited to announce uh, and fortunate to announce now that we’re in a position to do so, the first ever disclosure grant. Uh and so please welcome to the stage uh Dylan Borland, Matthew Brown, and Jeff Nuccetelli. [Visual, 7:13:02] Dylan Borland, Matthew Brown, and Jeff Nuccetelli walk up to the stage, shaking hands with Jordan Flowers. [Visual, 7:13:07] The presentation screen to the left displays a slide titled “Special Presentation” showing the first “Disclosure Grant” recipient as “Vanguard Enterprise” for “$10,000”. [Jordan Flowers, 7:13:29] The Disclosure Foundation believes in leading from the front on this topic, these gentlemen, and being collaborative. These gentlemen have created an organization called the Vanguard Enterprise, and we are incredibly excited to announce our first grant from the Disclosure Foundation for $10,000 to the Vanguard Enterprise. Gentlemen, thank you. [Visual, 7:13:54] Jordan Flowers hands a $10,000 check to Matthew Brown, Dylan Borland, and Jeff Nuccetelli. [Visual, 7:14:14] Close-up of Matthew Brown speaking at the podium. [Matthew Brown, 7:14:09] Thank you, everyone. Um I’ll be brief. It’s been a long day uh and very informative. But um first, just have to say uh thank you to Jordan and the entire UAP Disclosure Foundation um not just for your generous donation uh to Vanguard, which proud to say you’re the first organization to support us, and hope there’ll be many more, but also for putting on this historic event. Um UFO, UAP, NHI disclosure, government transparency, it’s no longer fringe, it’s no longer outside. It is here, quite literally, in the halls of power. We’re in the Kennedy Caucus Room, and I just cannot uh express how exciting that is um for me to see and and be a part of. Um Vanguard was founded based on the direct experience of Dylan, myself, and others, uh some who are public and others who are not, which is that there is a critical and urgent need uh to support whistleblowers on the UAP topic who come forward, really risk it all, and continue to pay the price and uh cannot afford to wait for government to catch up. Um we have families, or we want to start families. The need is now and urgent, and that is why civic society uh I’m proud to say is stepping up and here to help. So we’re building an organization that not just will help us, but I think empower voices to go out there and spread the good word as they go out to their communities, they feel stable and respected and welcomed, uh that can only do good for the movement as a whole. Um you know, one of the bright spots in this journey has been the outflowing of support from people who want to help, whether that’s uh, you know, offering their time, their expertise, or just wanting to get involved. Um it’s, it’s frankly too much, and what Vanguard will hopefully do in the coming uh, in the coming months and years is channel that support in an organized way so that it goes to where it’s needed most: the legal, financial, medical, psychological, and community needs of UAP whistleblowers and their families. So thank you again to the UAP Disclosure Foundation for helping that dream to start to come true, and thank you to all our supporters here and, and out there who, who are have been with us and will continue to be with us. And uh to close, I just want to all end with an old adage, which is that the flame of knowledge is kept alight uh and passed on generation by generation by a relatively thankless, small few uh who are warriors for the truth in their time, and make sure that that truth goes forward into the next cycle of humanity. And, you know, the lesson I take away from that is that at the center of all of this is the human factor. Disclosure is about us. It’s not just the science, it’s not just the wonder or the uh institution, organizations, conspiracies, and competition. It’s, it’s very human, it’s very personal. And at the center of that are the experiencers, the abductees, the people at the fringe of society who experience this whether they want to or not, and have for far too long uh been marginalized and silenced. And I think that is starting to change culturally, um but it took a lot of work to get here. And while it’s before my time, I can only imagine uh the sort of darkness and isolation others went through uh dealing with those sort of extraordinary experiences in a sometimes cruel and unbelieving world. So I just want to take a moment to thank one of those people, there are many, but one person who, you know, gave a voice and a platform, and more than that, counsel and comfort to experiencers and abductees, and he’s here today, and that’s Mr. Strieber. Thank you Whitley. [Visual, 7:18:12] Whitley Strieber walks up to the stage as the audience applauds. [Visual, 7:18:19] Close-up of Whitley Strieber speaking at the podium. [Whitley Strieber, 7:18:19] Thank you. Uh it has been a rather long journey. I can remember the beginning of it, staring into the face of a jeering host on a television set in the under the bright lights alone, and then going home in the night, and coming face to face with the very thing that they were laughing about. But you’re not laughing, and I’m so glad you are here. Keep up the good work. We will become a cosmic species. [Visual, 7:18:58] Whitley Strieber steps down, and Jordan Flowers returns to the podium. [Jordan Flowers, 7:19:04] Thank you. [Jordan Flowers, 7:19:07] And with three minutes left to go, that was not expected. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Uh thank you to everyone for coming today. Uh I again want to say especially thank you to the volunteers at our organization for helping put this together. Uh please give them another round of applause. [Visual, 7:19:18] Close-up of Jordan Flowers at the podium. [Jordan Flowers, 7:19:28] And especially [Jordan Flowers, 7:19:40] our gratitude for running this uh this circus. Thank you. [Visual, 7:19:44] Jordan Flowers applauds, smiles, and steps away from the podium. [Visual, 7:19:57] Jordan Flowers and Matthew Brown hug and shake hands. [Visual, 7:20:00] Close shot of men in suits shaking hands, with Disclosure Foundation logo in top-left [Visual, 7:20:12] Wide shot of a room with people standing and talking [Visual, 7:20:14] Title slide: “THANK YOU FOR WATCHING”, with Disclosure Foundation logo, date “JUNE 12, 2023”, and National Press Club text

UFOpedia

Explorer

disclosure-forum-2026-kennedy-caucus-room-2026-06-25

Disclosure Forum 2026: “Humanity at the Edge of Discovery” — Kennedy Caucus Room (Disclosure Foundation, 25 Jun 2026)

Disclosure Forum 2026: Humanity at the Edge of Discovery - Kennedy Caucus Room (Disclosure Foundation, 2026-06-25)

Graph View

Table of Contents

Backlinks