Anomaly-NOW! 20250827

Anomaly-NOW! 8/27/2025 – Weekly News/Media Round-Up

Anomaly-NOW! 8/27/2025 – Weekly News/Media Round-Up

Anomaly-NOW! Is the (Sometimes) Live Weekly News RoundUp show, Wednesdays (Usually) @ 7pm CDT, from the 501c3 nonprofit Anomaly Archives in Austin, Texas.
https://www.AnomalyArchives.org

 

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Anomaly-NOW! Archive Directory

 

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Local Austin, Texas MeetUps & Happenings…

August 22, September 26, October 17 

At the New Nature’s Treasures Event Center 

11055 North Interstate Highway 35 Austin, TX 78753 

www.DamnedShow.com 

 

 

AI, Frontier Tech and UFOlogy . . . and Fringe Groups

 

UFOLOGY

 

Magickal Mystical Metaphysics & Esoterica

 

Anomaly-NOW 20250827 Transcript and MORE

Title / Shownotes / Chapters / Takeaways / Summary / Raw Transcript (No Editing or Spellcheck) created by Cleanvoice.ai

Balancing Acts: AI, UFOs, and the Ethics of Influence

### From Cemetery Symbols to AI Ethics: A Deep Dive into Modern Mysteries

 

Embark on a fascinating journey through cemetery symbolism with researcher Tui Snyder’s upcoming presentation of “Around the World in 80 Graves,” while navigating the increasingly complex landscape of artificial intelligence. This episode unpacks AI’s dual nature – from its groundbreaking physics discoveries to concerning “hallucinations” and ethical dilemmas. 

 

The discussion weaves through multiple interconnected themes:

– Cemetery symbolism and cultural preservation

– AI’s impact on scientific discovery and content creation

– The evolution of UFO encounters and entity reports

– Parallels between AI and paranormal phenomena

– The challenge of maintaining authentic human experiences in a tech-driven world

 

Special attention is given to YouTube’s AI video editing capabilities and their implications for reality perception, while expert insights from figures like Jaron Lanier and Ted Gioia provide crucial perspective on technology’s role in shaping our understanding of reality.

 

Ready to explore the intersection of ancient symbols, modern technology, and unexplained phenomena? Tune in to this mind-expanding episode that bridges the gap between past mysteries and future challenges.

  • Upcoming Presentation on Cemetery Symbolism
  • AI Innovations in Physics Research
  • AI’s Impact on Society and Science
  • AI’s Impact on Reality Perception
  • Evolution of UFO Encounter Descriptions
  • AI, Unconscious Mind, and the Paranormal
  • Questioning Alien Worship and Reality
  • Strange Light Encounter on the Road
  • Discussion on Hyper Realities and Comedy
  • Controlled Disclosure and UAP Health Risks
  • Insights on UAPs and Drone Incursions
  • Weaponized Drones and Public Safety Risks
  • UFOs and Whistleblower Protections
  • Dismissed Lawsuit and Lubbock Lights
  • Digitizing Occult Books and Fairy Photos
  • Exploring Plant Intelligence and Consciousness

 

  • AI’s dual nature is not just a tech issue, but a deep ethical dilemma involving misinformation and societal impact.  
  • Influential figures like Joe Rogan hold significant responsibility in how they present complex topics, such as UFO phenomena, shaping public perception.  
  • The conversation around cemetery symbolism highlights the importance of cultural narratives and their evolution in contemporary discussions.

 

In the latest episode of Anomaly Now, host Smiles Lewis shares updates on the podcast’s schedule and an exciting upcoming presentation by researcher Tui Snyder, who explores cemetery symbolism in her new book, “Around the World in 80 Graves.” Smiles invites listeners to support the nonprofit via Patreon and mentions a casual meetup for enthusiasts, dubbed Area 512. He also addresses a humorous audio glitch from the previous episode, adding a touch of lightheartedness to the discussion. In a recent podcast episode, the speakers discussed the dual nature of AI, highlighting both its innovative potential and troubling implications. They noted that AI is now creating effective physics experiments and discovering new phenomena, challenging long-held beliefs. However, they also expressed concern over AI hallucinations and ethical issues, referencing disturbing cases where individuals were misled by chatbots. The episode concluded with a critical look at YouTube’s secret AI video editing, raising alarms about reality distortion and the impact on content creators. In a recent podcast, the speakers delve into the complexities of content creation and the impact of AI on authenticity in media. They discuss Miguel Romero’s thought-provoking article, which highlights Ted Gioia’s concern that future generations may struggle to differentiate reality from AI-generated fabrications. While acknowledging the challenges posed by AI, Romero suggests that detecting manipulated images is becoming easier, drawing connections to the chaotic nature of early AI imagery and its parallels with ancient shamanic experiences. Their discussion underscores the evolving relationship between technology and perception in today’s digital landscape. In a thought-provoking podcast segment, RPJ delves into the evolution of UFO encounters and the variety of entities reported over the decades. He contrasts early accounts—featuring a bizarre menagerie of creatures—with the later prevalence of the classic “Gray” alien stereotype, suggesting that cultural phenomena and selective reporting shaped these narratives. RPJ invites listeners to consider alternative interpretations, challenging the simplistic extraterrestrial hypothesis while acknowledging the enigmatic nature of these experiences and their impact on our understanding of the unknown. In a thought-provoking discussion, speakers explore the parallels between generative AI and the unconscious mind, drawing insights from philosophers like Jacques Lacan and Alenka Zubancic. They speculate on how AI may reflect patterns of the paranormal, likening repetitive narratives in both fields to degradation of creativity. Jaron Lanier, a tech visionary, challenges the notion of AI intelligence and warns against idolizing technology and extraterrestrial myths. The conversation highlights the importance of prioritizing human experiences and addressing pressing societal issues over fantastical narratives. In this thought-provoking podcast segment, the speakers explore the complexities of UFO phenomena, pondering whether our perceptions of aliens could be reflections of our own consciousness. They reference an article by Ted Giao that discusses the fragility of shared reality, drawing parallels to historical purges and image manipulation. They also share a chilling UFO sighting anecdote by Gary Numan, which adds a personal touch to the broader conversation about the intersection of belief, reality, and the unknown, highlighting the need for critical thinking in today’s divided social landscape. In a lively discussion, Miguel from Mexico and Greg Taylor from Australia explore the controversial figure of Joe Rogan, emphasizing the responsibility of influential voices to present accurate information. They reference a thought-provoking documentary that critiques Rogan and his circle for creating “hyper realities.” Their conversation also touches on the topic of controlled disclosures about UFOs, particularly highlighting insights from researcher Courtney Marcus Ani and her concerns regarding military narratives around extraterrestrial phenomena. The episode navigates themes of media influence, accountability, and the evolving landscape of public discourse. In a recent podcast, the speakers delved into the intriguing connections between Peter Thiel and UFO media coverage, highlighting insights from a newly funded documentary and ongoing discussions about unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). They emphasized the potential health risks associated with UAP exposure, referencing a recent literature review introduced by Jacques Vallée. The conversation also touched on the New Jersey drone incidents, featuring insights from former high-ranking FAA official Brett Feddersen, who reiterated concerns about legitimate security threats posed by drone incursions at military sites. In a recent podcast, a speaker discussed the classification and misconceptions surrounding UFOs, or UAPs, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing them from commonplace drones. He noted that while many sightings can be attributed to misidentified crafts, some remain unexplained, posing potential threats to national security. Transparency and communication from the government regarding UAPs were highlighted as severely lacking. The discussion also touched on the dangers of weaponized drones, which can cause significant harm, underscoring the need to address these advancements responsibly. In a recent podcast, the speakers delve into the intriguing challenges of credible UFO investigations, highlighting Leon Davidson’s controversial reputation and the ease with which rumors can tarnish a person’s name. They reference a 1974 interview with John Northrup from Northrup Grumman, where his insights into UFO sightings shared by top test pilots underscore the military’s long-standing awareness of UFO phenomena. Additionally, they discuss Whitley Strieber’s privacy lawsuit dismissal, raising concerns about future whistleblower protections in the UAP community. Lastly, they note a local Lubbock news source, drawing connections to famous UFO sightings in the area. In a lively exchange, the speakers discussed the recent launch of the Archives of the Impossible YouTube channel, which has made previously private videos public, much to their excitement. They praised the efforts of Dan Brown and the Rittman Library for digitizing occult books, making them accessible to a wider audience. The conversation also touched on the nostalgia surrounding the Cottingly fairy photos that recently fetched a high price at auction. As they wrapped up, they encouraged listeners to engage with their content and support their endeavors. In this engaging podcast segment, the speakers encourage listeners to support their initiative through monthly contributions, highlighting how every dollar counts. They also promote an upcoming lecture by Tui Snyder on September 24th, focusing on her book “Around the World in 80 Graves,” which explores themes of travel and personal transformation through the lens of culturally significant tombstones. The speakers express gratitude for any support and enthusiasm for the upcoming event.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, welcome to another edition of Anomaly Now, straight out of Austin, Texas. I’m your host, Smiles Lewis. This is the weekly, sometimes live, news and media roundup for the 501c3 non -profit Scientific Anomaly Institute, aka the Anomaly Archives. Thank you for joining us. We try to release this show every Wednesday at 7pm. We’re not sure if we’re going to be able to continue that schedule. There’s various life things happening that may interfere with getting the show out on that regular of a basis. We’re also considering doing shorter, more frequent little episodes, but just watch the YouTube channel here or our website anomalyarchives .org and of course our Patreon at patreon .com slash

 

slash anomaly archives. Well, we’ve got some fun stuff coming up for our patrons. You can go to that patron website, patreon .com slash anomaly archives or anomaly archives .org and link through. But yeah, we’ve got a good presentation coming up soon. That’s going to be Tui Snyder. Tui Snyder is a wonderful, amazing researcher into cemetery history, that sort of thing. cemetery symbolism tombstone symbolisms and she’s been traveling a lot and has this new wonderful book called around the world in 80 graves subtitled travel tombstones and transformation and she’s going to be giving our patrons a presentation about that so we’re very excited to have her as a presenter and hope that you’ll join us folks can sign up for free or various levels of monthly giving all of it all which helps us at the anomaly archives so please consider doing that and yeah that’s coming up september 24th next month so hopefully you’ll join us and of course you can go to her website which is that’s tuisnider .com that’s t -u -i -s -n -i -d -e -r tuisnider .com And yeah, you can learn all about her. She’s a sweetie. And she’s going to be appearing on Coast to Coast AM next month as well. So keep an ear out for that. That should be really cool. If you’d like more information on her, you can read. She is a regular contributor to American Cemetery and Cremation. That’s at kates -boylston .com. And she has this July 31st article, Cemetery Shapes, over at that website where she often writes for. so you can check that out and also there’s a lot of of course she did a presentation for us back in 2020 and that was part of our streamathon fundraiser and but if you go to the youtube channel for austin parks and recreation that’s youtube .com slash at symbol austin city parks you can search for all the videos there’s like six or seven of these videos that she’s done on cemetery symbolism et cetera, at local parks here in Austin, Texas. And I think you might enjoy that. All right. Well, that’s all for that. And yeah, we’ve got not affiliated with the anomaly archives, but tomorrow night, if you’re in the South Austin area, you may want to go over to cosmic cafe and join David, myself and others for alien beers and cheers. Number five, that’s cosmic coffee at 7 PM, Thursday, August 28th. That’s tomorrow. Today being Wednesday, August 27th. And yeah, you can go to the meetup group that we linked to, find out details about that. We’ll be talking about all things weird and ufological and all related subjects. David has recently rebranded the meetup as Area 512. Of course, Austin’s oldest phone area code is 512. And so, yes, he’s rebranded as Area 512 and, of course, Area 51. Anyway, check it out. And let’s dive in. We’ve got some AI news. And I’m going to do a lot of follow -up news today. But, of course, you can go to our Flipboard, flipboard .com slash at Anomaly Archives or go to anomalyarchives .org and find all the links there. And in the show notes for the podcast. Oh, that reminds me. Last week’s. For those that watch the show, you may have seen something humorous that happened when I came back from a break. I commented that I had to speed through the remaining news stories, and somehow the audio on the video glitched and was not quite chipmunks, but pitched my voice higher and faster. And that was kind of a weird synchronicity. Those of you just listening to the audio version, you heard a normal version. But there you go. Anyway, AI news. So yeah, AI can do some good as much as we comment on the potential negative issues surrounding it. Here is something from wired .com. AI is designing bizarre new physics experiments that actually work. Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still, quote, doing a lot of babysitting. So you’ll want to check that out there over at Wired .com and read some of that good news. And over at Popular Mechanics is this one. An AI system found a new kind of physics that scientists had never seen before. Scientists had theorized about the possibility of a plasma physics phenomenon, but their AI system discovered the real thing. Yes.

 

There are bullet points for this article for all the problems AI is causing society. Exactly. One of its greatest benefits lies in the world of science. A new study focused on the chaotic dynamics of dusty plasmas found that when trained properly, AI can actually discover new physics all on its own. By providing the most detailed description of this type of matter, the AI corrected long -held theoretical beliefs about how particles behave inside a dusty plasma. So you might want to check that out. Now, I think this might be paywalled, but I was able to read it earlier. It’s not letting me in there now, but that’s fine because the New York Times, I take them or leave them, right? The newspaper of record, maybe a long time ago. But yeah, they’ve got an article on yet. Again, chatbots can go into a delusional spiral and they talk about examples of this. This is obviously a very… Concerning things, you’ve got these AI that are quote -unquote hallucinating and pretty much lying, providing false information. I don’t know if you can lie if you actually aren’t conscious, but in effect, that is the outcome. Of course, we were talking about last week how a mentally challenged individual had been convinced by an AI chatbot to go on a trip to New York City to meet the AI, and he did not survive. And so you’ve sure heard of all the different cases of people experiencing what they’re calling AI psychosis, et cetera. And even South Park got into the mix recently with their AI -inspired episode, which basically amounts to them showing, and this is actually something that’s in this New York Times article, that basically these are sycophants. machines that they’re basically just telling you what you want to hear. And even if you try to get it, to give you, you know, more accurate information, it’s going to tend towards telling you it’s kind of supporting a confirmation bias situation, but basically encouraging people’s delusions through this kind of sicko fancy. Meanwhile, follow up to what we were also reported last week. BBC News is now covering this. YouTube secretly used AI to edit people’s videos. The results could bend reality. And this is, again, this is a very concerning issue, and this is just something I’m going to highlight here today. We were talking about how some content producers had noticed that the short clips that are variously called reels or stories or… or clips, whatever. There’s different names for them on different platforms. But on YouTube’s platform, there seemed to be some kind of quote -unquote AI upscaling or some kind of compression. There’s always been compression applied to YouTube videos, which causes all kinds of issues for content creators. But this was causing various people to perceive the videos that they had uploaded as having been recreated by AI. And yeah.

 

These content creators are very upset about this and the fact that it was done without being asked, it just portends so much concern.

 

As these scare quotes here, AI is increasingly a medium that defines our lives and realities.

 

And yes, what happens if people know that companies are editing content from the top down without even telling the content creators themselves? These are important questions. I mean, it’s their platform, but it’s the content creators who are the ones making the content that is making them money. So you’d think that they would have some kind of obligation to those creators. Now, going for a little bit of a deeper dive is this most excellent, excellent Daily Grail article by Miguel Romero, Red Pill Junkie. From August 21st last week, AI, gray filters, and the collapsing unconscious. You know, Miguel is somebody who’s always been a really outside -the -box thinker and is an amazing artist. If you aren’t familiar with him, he started out as a commenter on a blog that no longer exists called UFO Mystic, U -F -O -M -Y -S -T -I -C dot com, UFO Mystic. where Nick Pope, not Nick Pope, excuse me, Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop and one or two others occasionally posted blog entries, news articles kind of stuff. And Red Pill Junkie, Greg, Miguel Romero rather, started commenting there as a regular reader and had obviously great insights. And he’s of course gone on to create many covers for UFO books, paranormal books. and also did the artwork for the wonderful UFO tarot cards that were produced by Greg Bishop and others, Josh Kutchen, Susan Demeter, and Miguel Romero. Anyway, this is a recent article of his. It starts with the quote from Jacques Lacan, The unconscious is structured like a language. And he begins the article with, over at his Substack blog, American cultural critic and musician. Music historian Ted Gioia, G -I -O -I -A, I’m not sure how to pronounce that, wrote about his worries that ours may be the last generation capable to distinguish reality from doctored digital fabrications. With the rise of AI and its increased sophistication, Ted warns very soon it will be impossible to know if videos or photos are genuine or fake. And this is what I’m trying to get at here, folks. I think the singularity is upon us, and the singularity is our inability to recognize reality from fabrications. Now,

 

Miguel goes on, I’m not sure I share Ted’s fears. Sure, my 85 -year -old dad is unable to tell whether the photo he received from his friend’s group on WhatsApp isn’t Gen AI image or not, and he lacks the proper discipline to fact -check the source of the bogus news he finds on his social media feeds. But that’s where I come in. All those years perusing blurry photos of UFOs and Bigfoot finally paid off. In fact, detecting whether an image is generated by an AI model is arguably getting easier, not harder. Take a look at the more examples of AI slop shared online. Have you noticed most of these pictures have a distinct yellow hue in them? He kind of goes off on something here that I’m not really familiar with, but yeah, he gives some examples of AI -generated artwork and this. weird yellow hue. Here’s some other examples in these images here. Now,

 

he relates this to what’s called model collapse and how this AI slop is feeding on itself. And this is, of course, a recurring theme in analyses and critiques of where we are with AI and so forth. But that’s not the main point of his article here.

 

He says, take for instance the early experiments with AI generated imagery which looked as if the algorithms had been injected with a digital version of DMT. Yes, I completely, that’s an accurate representation. Though I’ve never taken DMT. The resulting shapes were fluid, dreamlike, chaotic, incongruent, and often morphed human and animal faces. An older gen AI portrait of Alan Moore made him look like a psychedelic dogman. Such

 

Therianthropic imagery, human figures displaying animal -like characteristics, were very common in ancient petroglyphs and interpreted by modern scholars as the result of shamanic rituals in which mind -altering substances might have been consumed. But most anthropologists might not be aware that early UFO close encounter reports were also filled with testimonies of witnesses describing similar therianthropic humanoids. Below are a few examples drawn by yours truly, RPJ. of such bizarre visitors. Excuse me.

 

And there you can see some images there. This kind of goblin -esque creature with pointy ears and fangs from the 1978 case in Gaiul. Long fingers and claws. And these bird -like entities from VAR 1962 and Rauma, R -A -U -M -A, in 1979. He goes on. Aside from the animal -headed UFOnauts, there is no denying that the older close encounter cases displayed a wider array of entities reported by witnesses. From leprechauns equipped with gyrocopter chairs like the one who slaughtered all the sheep of an indigenous woman in Bolivia in 1967, to humanoids with fused legs ending on a single foot, like the ones that invited an anonymous witness to visit their ship in Loma de Balleno, Peru in 1949. The entities told the witness in perfect Spanish they had evolved beyond the need for sex to reproduce, and they could also exchange nutrients just by contact. The mono foot is a trope that would be repeated in other cases, like the famous Pascagoula abduction of 1973, or the less known abduction from Paciencia, Brazil, in 1977, where the witness was captured and subjected to a medical examination by metallic -looking robots standing on a cylindrical pedestal. and sporting tentacle -like arms. More images here by RPJ that are so wonderful. I love his sketches. Yes.

 

But then came Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and not long after, the intrusion of the so -called alien abduction phenomenon in global consciousness through the popularization of reports collected and doctored, either through selection or insemination, by Bud Hopkins and David Jacobs. Agree? The cultural impact caused by the cover of Whitley Streber’s Communion has been amply discussed and cannot be overstated. Before the 1980s, close encounters gathered by investigators from all around the world displayed a colorful bestiary of UFOnauts. UFOnauts. After the 1980s, the reports became more amalgamated until the stereotype of the alien gray or gray alien, short stature, emaciated body, oversized, inverted teardrop head, massive black almond -shaped eyes, slit -like, lipless mouth, barely discernible nose, no ears, became the expected manifestation of alien visitation. Yes, yes, there is that infamous cover. One can try to explain this apparent uniformity with all sorts of speculation. If you’re an advocate of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, ETH, perhaps you would imagine that Earth used to be visited by dozens of alien groups until the greys drove all the competitors away and imposed a quote -unquote cosmic embargo on our planet. We could also imagine that the older, wilder entity configurations were screen memories imposed by the Greys to confuse the witnesses, but the facade was lifted once researchers learned how to retrieve memories from the minds of UFO experiencers. A more parsimonious explanation would be that Hopkins and Jacobs nitpicked the data collected from their experiencer sources in favor of the narrative they were expecting to find and discarded the descriptions they deemed confabulations because it didn’t. fit that narrative. And or, as Jacques Vallée and others have pointed out, there is a selective process on the part of the experiencers. So if an abductee or somebody who’s had a strange experience hears Bud Hopkins or David Jacobs or John Mack describe certain types of encounters,

 

Hopkins or David Jacobs or John Mack describe certain types of encounters, if their encounter fits that, then they’re more likely to go to that. So there’s a selection process at multiple levels. Continuing. RPJ says, yes, of course. I like to speculate as much as any other UFO buff. It’s pretty much all most of us can do due to the lack of actual verifiable evidence. But since I’m a contrarian by nature and the ETH bores me to tears, I would like to propose another type of speculation as a mental experiment. And this is where he gets kind of… out there. And I’m not sure whether I agree, but it kind of jives with some of my own ideas. Let us suppose that French philosopher Jacques Lacan was right, and the unconscious is structured like a language. Perhaps by feeding their hungry, hungry algorithms with the entirety of human knowledge available online, AI developers inadvertently created something that is not sentient or even intelligent, as they naively intended, but crudely resembles the landscape of the unconscious mind nonetheless. as Slovenian philosopher Alenka Zubancic proposes in this substack piece. And there’s a link there to Welcome to the Riviera of the Real by this Alenka fellow. But I will go even further than Zubancic, just for the hell of it, and propose that perhaps generative AI models somehow mimic the relationship between the unconscious mind and the paranormal. To reiterate, perhaps generative… AI models somehow mimic the relationship between the unconscious mind and the paranormal. As stated previously, we’ve gone from the shamanic therianthropes and wild visions of the early close encounters to the same old boring flavor of the month of the gray alien stereotype. Funny how, just like previous AI models often got the number of fingers on human hands wrong, the number of fingers in gray type aliens is also a matter of some debate. Some witnesses report three fingers, others four, etc. If this is indeed the case, and the paranormal is somehow related to how AI algorithms operate, then the current gray filter of homogenous entity reports would be a symptom of that paranormal model degrading and collapsing over the decades after falling into the same vicious cycle experienced by AI models when they are repeatedly trained and retrained on AI slop. Perhaps The human unconscious suffers the same degradation when it is continuously exposed to derivative UFO slop churned by generic documentaries and exploitative TV shows. Do not ask me to provide a mechanism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he’s not saying, look, I’m sure about this. It’s just speculation and that’s all we can do. And he’s interested in, as he says, I’m more interested in expanding creativity and getting rid of abusive systems of control. I’m not interested in living in a world where open AI drives all genuine artistic efforts into the ground the same way I’m not interested in listening to generic UFO narratives predicated as if they were religious dogmas. He then all invokes Joshua Kutcheon using the parlance of my friend Joshua Kutcheon’s fourth wall phantoms. I want to see if there are ways to retcon the UFO mythos, although I’m not sure how it could be done, he says. In a 2023 interview, computer science visionary Jaron Lanier openly talked about his disagreements over current AI technology with his peers in Silicon Valley. Unlike Sam Altman and most of the tech bros, he doesn’t think generative AI models display any sort of intelligence and warns about worshipping the code as if it were the dawn of a coming digital deity. There is Jaron Lanier. dreadlocks and all. He was an early pioneer of virtual reality and has been profoundly against what the internet has become. Miguel goes on, RPJ says, I feel this is an approach that could prove to be useful in the UFO field as well, where so many worship the alien and regard the human component of paranormal experiences as secondary. Or less important, when in fact it’s probably the reverse. Just as worshipping the code and treating AI models as super intelligences end up dehumanizing society and profiting the promoters of these technologies, worshipping the alien has brought us all sorts of unreliable narratives ripe for exploitation by questionable actors. The promises of disclosure advocates are as ludicrous as those of the singularity prophets, and they distract us from the real immediate problems we should focus on. climate change, and economic inequality to name but a few. And this is his concluding thought. Perhaps it’s time to entertain the disturbing possibility that just as there is no ghost inside the machine, there might be no higher intelligence behind UFO events or other paranormal manifestations. Perhaps, just perhaps, we’ve been fooling ourselves with the distorted echoes of our own unconscious voice. And yeah,

 

there is the famous tale of the man becoming entranced by looking at his reflection.

 

So yeah, I mean, I constantly tell people, I do think that there is a high likelihood of a true alien other at the heart of the UFO phenomenon, whatever the heck it is. And yet I do entertain various other possibilities that maybe we are deluding ourselves. Maybe we are interacting with something that seems alive, seems conscious, seems self -aware, but in fact is so enmeshed in our own consciousness, our own unconscious, our own archetypes, our own collective psyche. that it just is able to convince us of that. I don’t know that that’s true, but it’s certainly something we shouldn’t write off as impossible. So one of the articles that Miguel references this one,

 

references this one, Our Shared Reality Will Self -Destruct in the Next 12 Months by Ted Giao, G -I -O -I -A. And this is over at honest -broker .com. What happens when you can’t trust photos, video, text, or the entire web? Yeah, that’s where we’re at. And this, of course, this article starts by mentioning, quote, During the great purges of the 1930s, Stalin ordered the execution of a million people, including some of his closest associates. But it wasn’t enough to kill these victims. They also had to disappear from photographs. In a famous case, Nikolai Yezov got removed from his position next to Stalin in a photo taken by the Moscow Canal. This erasure alarmed many party elites because Yesov, head of the secret police, had been one of the most feared men in the Soviet Union. And now he got totally deleted. Yeah,

 

that headline, our shared reality will self -destruct in the next 12 months. This idea of the inability for people to determine what is real. So maybe we should stop. Praying to the Alien.

 

Of course, that is the song, Praying to the Aliens, by Tubeway Army, a .k .a. Gary Newman, and in his biography titled Praying to the Aliens, there actually is a reference to UFOs on page 111. He says, I think I saw a UFO once. On the way home from one of those dance sessions, it was a short time after the Wembley shows, about two o ‘clock in the morning. I was with my new girlfriend, Michelle Adams. It was very dark and a little damp as it had been raining and the cloud cover was quite low. We were driving alongside a major motorway junction when light shone down out of the clouds. The strange thing about the beam was that it appeared to be in the shape of an upside down pyramid. The apex of the ray appeared to just touch the surface of the road. At the point where it came through the cloud, it was perfectly square and very large. It didn’t move, and there was no discernible sound. I stopped the car, feeling frightened to be honest, and we watched this object for several seconds. I knew from what the cloud was covering, local hills, pylons, that kind of thing, that the cloud base was only about 400 feet up at best, and the width of the beam as it came through the cloud was at least that, if not more. This ruled out helicopters or any other flying vehicle that I was aware of. as did the lack of noise. The light vanished as quickly as it came, like flicking off a switch. And in another reference to the Daily Grail,

 

another reference

 

to the Daily Grail, they have posted on their Patreon a free video that normally they do a weekly video that’s available only to Patreon paying members, but they have posted one for free. It’s a 35 -minute chat. Behind the Grail for 8 -22 -2025, The Question of Joe. Oh, what Joe are they talking about? Of course, Joe Rogan. Of course, so many people we often reference on this show. Everything is so divisive politically these days. And I know that there are strong feelings about just about everybody. And Joe Rogan’s obviously one of them. But he has on a lot of people. quote unquote important to the ufo scene and who are interested in a variety of these topics but anyway this was a very fun conversation that you know it gets to a lot of what i’ve said at times when i have defended joe rogan in so much as i don’t necessarily feel he’s the worst thing in the world even as i recognize that he does often offer bad information and uncritically

 

this was a

 

information and uncritically puts it out there. I do think that people with that wide of an audience do have an obligation to be more discerning and careful in their fact -checking. But anyway, you might find this interesting. That is Miguel there on the left and Greg Taylor, the founder of the Daily Grail there on the right. Miguel is in Mexico and Greg is in Australia. And it’s always fun hearing them talk. And they reference a documentary that they link to that I have not had the chance to watch yet. But let’s see. Yeah. How does it describe it? A fantastic YouTube video I had watched that took both Joe and his larger circle of friends and guests, Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Eric Weinstein, Tony Hinchcliffe, et cetera, to task for moving into their own quote unquote hyper realities. It’s full of super dry humor and is part of a larger series about the modern standup comedy scene. So you may have to work to get into it for the first eight minutes or so, but if you can stick with it, it quickly draws you in from that point on. It’s an amazing piece, very Adam Curtis, fantastic soundtrack and editing with a massive, with a massive, massive satirical humorous edge to the narration, but also has a stack of great insights, discussion of tech billionaires, hyper realities, and the dark enlightenment. hoists many of those in the Roganverse on their own petards over and over again. Now, what also caught my attention, I have watched this 35 minute episode of Greg and Miguel behind the grail. Enjoyed it, like I say, but they’re mostly talking about their own thoughts on the Roganverse and where he started and where he is now and where he may go in the future. And but of course, it seems a lot predicated on this video that they link to, which I have not had the chance to watch, but I am very intrigued by their description of it. And you might find that of note as well. All right. Well, we’re going to move into the UFO portion of the show. Let me do some house cleaning here. And check on time. Here we go. All right. So yes, of course you can go to our flip board. There’s tons of news articles there. So on the tech bro universe. Yeah. I want, and following up on several things, there’s a lot of great links over at our flip board. And there’s this video from the red panda koala YouTube channel where he’s quoting this, this researcher who I was not. really familiar with before named Courtney Marcus Annie. It’s spelled her last name spelled M -A -R -C -H like March E -S -A -I but E -S -A -N -I M -A -R -C -H March E -S -A -N -I Marcus Annie is apparently how she pronounces that Courtney Marcus Annie. And yeah, so I actually I became aware of her. When she appeared, as you can see here on 10 days ago on Pavel’s Psychoactivo episode number 570, where he interviews her for about an hour. And one of the main points that they’re talking about is this idea of controlled disclosure that’s been promoted by various people, especially Colonel Carl Nell. Now,

 

Carl Nell is a very interesting figure. Definitely things I’ve heard about him that caused me great concern. I was very impressed with his presentation at the, oh, that reminds me, at the Rice University conference this year,

 

this year, the 2025 Rice Conference. Gosh darn it. Let’s see if I can pull up what I’m looking for.

 

Well, anyway, going back to the Peter Thiel stuff. The Carl Nell stuff. So yeah, Marcus Ani was on Pavel’s show and she is alleging, she says that it’s fairly common knowledge, but it’s only finally gotten out to the public that the person who has been pushing this idea of an alien spacecraft on its way here, that’s going to arrive in some unknown time either. later next year or on 2027 or 2030 or something, that she, I think, in this video is asserting that it is Carl now. And I’ve since found this other video of her being quoted, and this is, again, back over, yes, this Red Panaquilla video. She’s quoted as saying, people were approached by Peter Thiel with a financial contract to cover UFOs in the media. And this also, she is saying that it was open knowledge amongst the people associated with this yet to be released Age of Disclosure UFO UAP documentary that Peter Thiel funded it, was at least one of the funders. Yeah. So obviously a lot more potential deep dives to be done on all this, but it is. It seems like the pieces have all been out there. People are finally starting to talk about it and connect the dots with the red string on their murder boards. So make of that what you will. But there’s a lot of other great links that we’re not going to get to, obviously, but you should check that out. Check out the Flipboard and other news. Some big news here with that organization in the UK called Unhidden. Over at their website, unhidden .org, U -N -H -I -D -D -E -N .org, they have this new publication out just this month, Potential Health Effects Associated with Exposure to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, a Literature Review, has an introduction by Jacques Vallée, and you can download the report for free there. And over at Ryan Sprague’s blog, he’s got an article on it called New Report Warns. Encounters with UAP may pose serious health risks, time for transparency and action. And he goes into some detail about the report, as well as again mentioning that it’s got an introduction or a forward by Jacques Vallée. You know, again, this is something that we’ve harped upon for a long time is as fascinating as UFOs are, they are not to be taken lightly and is highly probable that. The high levels of energy involved with this phenomenon could pose significant health issues for close encounter witnesses. Now, moving slightly away from the quote -unquote UFO -UAP issue, there’s this new article over at TWZ .com, that’s The War Zone, titled What Were the New Jersey Drones? Former high -ranking FAA official gives his take. A former UAP task force member and high -ranking National Security Council official tells us what he knows about the New Jersey drone scare. Now, I don’t know if I want to read too extensively from this. It’s the second half of a longer interview. I don’t know what was talked about in the first part of the interview, but it’s, I think, as usual, the Warzone is doing good work here. And just listen to this person’s resume.

 

For nearly a decade, starting in 2011, Brett Feddersen, a retired Army officer, served in a wide range of executive roles under the Obama and first Trump administrations. He was national security liaison, senior intelligence officer for the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, deputy chief of intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, senior advisor for strategy plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, JCS, worked in the executive office of the president, was director for transportation and border security at the National Security Council, NSC. Principal Deputy Director for the JSC, JCS, Trans Regional Threats Coordination Cell, and an Executive Director at the FAA. He was also a member of the Navy’s UAP task force created in 2020 to investigate what used to be known as UFOs. Feddersen is currently Chairman of the Security Industry Association’s Counter UAS Working Group and is Vice President of Strategy and Government Affairs for Defend Solutions, which supplies counter drone equipment to the U .S. military. Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and other clients. Doesn’t that kind of imply a possible conflict of interest? I’m not saying there is, but… Anyway.

 

Yeah, so the main gist is he really reaffirms what I’ve been saying all along about the drone situation, that there are legitimate incursions of… Possibly, you know, amateur drone operators, but more likely foreign adversaries at these military bases. But that the majority of civilian sightings were, as I and others were saying, largely misidentifications of normal craft, normal drones doing all legal operations. He does also invoke the fact that there have been these commercial. drone programs that are for payloads, moving payloads around. But yeah, basically, you know, is very, shoots straight on all of this, but does acknowledge that there are those reports that fall outside their capability to explain and that those are true UFO, UAP, that they’re unidentified and don’t seem to be exhibiting capabilities that they think they or foreign adversaries could have. And yeah, I think that’s important for this to be said.

 

think that’s important for this to be said. There was something he said, let’s see.

 

Gosh. Yeah. So at some point they, the questioner says, let’s switch gears and talk about UAP or what used to be known as UFOs. You were part of the UAP task force created in August 2020 to detect, analyze, and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U .S. national security. It was ultimately replaced by the Arrow All -Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Can you talk about how UAPs fit into the craze over drones? He says, UAPs are a real thing that we can’t identify across the globe. It’s not just in the United States. So not to be conflated with drones, we just don’t know what those are. And there’s often a confusion with those as well. as well, that are flying in the airspace. I don’t recall any true UAPs being seen in the New Jersey incident, but it’s just one of those things that the government should also take seriously. What I was looking for was there’s a point in here when he’s criticizing the government’s response during the July case.

 

Yeah, where he’s basically saying there needed to be more transparency and better communication of what… what’s going on. And he says that was severely lacking.

 

So just the final question though, you know, he’s asked, you know, do you believe that UAPs are advanced adversary technologies or is it possible that these are created by non -human intelligence? He’s like, anything’s possible. We don’t know. That’s the problem. They ask again, are these created by non -human intelligence? He kind of goes to this other position of, I don’t want to comment. The final question and answer, what is your realistic worst case nightmare scenario about drones that’s going to happen? And he says a drone that can dispense some type of aerosol or powder over a large crowd. That one is top of mind for everybody. Weaponized drones or drones being used kinetically by itself. I mean, they can reach some high speeds, 50 to 60 miles per hour and flying into an individual. is going to cause a lot of damage. Even flying into the window of a vehicle is going to create a lot of damage that will threaten the life, limbs, or eyesight of individuals. These are things that we know are being proliferated across the internet for people to do. We know that there are people inside the U .S. who have weaponized drones or have done these things, going back to the guy who dropped die packs in the pools over in New Jersey. There’s a lot of agricultural drones that bring so much benefit, but they also have this risk factor. Anyway, not really UFO related per se, but as we’ve argued before, the New Jersey drone scare was, in my estimation, a classic UFO flap in the sense that it was people seeing things that they couldn’t identify because mainly, mainly because 80 plus percent haystack of UFO sightings are misidentifications by people who just aren’t used to looking up at the sky and the things that are flying around. All right, quickly continuing with some UFO news. There’s this another good article, FBI records on Leon Davidson offer insight into the Cold War. Leon Davidson is a character in the old UFO scene, classic UFO era, who worked on the Manhattan Project and I believe was a chemist who began pestering people about his belief that the CIA was behind the majority of UFO sightings and that it was basically all a matter of elant electronic intelligence and ecm electric electric electronic countermeasures that were being confused for ufos and often deliberately misleading being used to mislead people to make them think that was ufos but in fact it was cover for some other covert activities and so leon davidson is a fascinating character but in this foia

 

used to mislead people to make them think that was ufos but in fact it was cover for some other covert activities and so leon davidson is a fascinating character but in this foia

 

Report from Jack Brewer over at expandingfrontiersresearch .org. He is talking about how somebody accused Leon Davidson of being a card -carrying communist. And Brewer, as usual, does a great job of explicating how the good and the bad about this kind of investigation. Like they had to follow up the leads. They were concerned, but they found no evidence for it. And it just goes to show how easy it is to defame somebody. with accusations like that. And I’d say it’s still the same way now. All right. I was recently made aware of a video interview that’s online. Apparently it emerged back in, I think, 2023 and then was resurrected in 2024 and is probably making rounds again now. Thank you, Greg Bishop, for pointing me towards this. It’s a video clip of… John Northrup, a .k .a. Jack Northrup. Yes, that Northrup, as in Northrup Grumman, the aviation giant. There is this interview with him circa 1974 talking about his belief in UFOs, not from direct sighting that he had, but through sightings he had by others, including some top chief test pilots, including one named Max R. Stanley. and two very knowledgeable observers. Very, very interesting. Apparently the original video that was put up back in 2023 got taken down, probably due to copyright violations. There are still variations of it all over the internet, but this one is over at EOC, that’s Eyes on Cinema. I’m sure if you’ve listened to any old audio or video clips about UFOs. You’ve probably come across this YouTube channel. They have other social media platforms as well. EOC eyes on cinema. They focus on UFO related stuff, but apparently they got permission from the producer and interviewer, Nancy Dale, who is the one interviewing John Northrup in the clip. You can go and watch that. We’ve got it embedded at our John Northrup page over at anomaly archives .org. She used to have a thing called the UFO vault and I’m looking at the archive. Her website’s gone. It’s down as of, I think, last year. But it’s still available via archive .org. And she has her UFO vault for this documentary that she put out years ago called The Elusive UFO. And it features this UFO vault image that I’m not sure, like, did that predate John Greenwald’s black vault image? Or did she? I don’t know. I don’t know who borrowed whose. But interesting. Anyway, you might want to go check that out. Like I said, there are other versions of that floating around. But it’s fun. It’s a fun video. Again, it goes to that whole idea of like people in the big military industrial complex aviation industry have long been aware of UFOs. And many of them have believed that there’s something significant there. Following up on another story from last week, this time. Whitley Striever’s Unknown Country, that’s unknowncountry .com, titled, Grush’s privacy lawsuit has been dismissed. What does this say about protections for future UAP whistleblowers? Indeed. Yeah, we were reporting on how his suit against Luden County Sheriff’s Department was dismissed. And this, of course, was all over them having released information about his medical issues. Yeah, his medical issues.

 

So where is, there we go. Yeah. Well, one last little thing. So our good friend, Daniel Allen Jones brought to our attention online that, so there’s a Lubbock newspaper or at least a website. I don’t know if they have a printed newspaper, but called Lubbock lights after the Lubbock lights. I don’t, they’re not UFO specific. They just appear to be an online newspaper, news source for local, the local Lubbock, Texas. But the fact that they’re called Lubbock Lights, of course, after the infamous, allegedly after the infamous famous UFO sightings of lights in Lubbock. Not really newsworthy, but hey, thanks, Daniel. And oh, yeah, what I was reminded of earlier, but I had forgotten to prepare to mention was so.

 

The. Bryce University Archives of the Impossible 2025 videos of that conference had been online for months and months, and I kept lamenting that they had not yet made them public.

 

them public. They’re still not public. The original videos and the playlist that they created for them, not public. You had to have the links in order to view it. Well, they finally created their own separate Archives of the Impossible YouTube channel. And that is at youtube .com slash at impossible archives. And they, yeah, you can see the title here. They’ve, when I, when I signed up yesterday, I think I only found this yesterday or the day before. They were right at 666 subscribers. So I was the 667th. But they’ve already jumped up to 905 subscribers. I haven’t heard anybody talking about this finally going public. I don’t think they’ve sent out an email, but God bless them. They finally got these videos up in a public way. These are separate videos, so they’re having to rack up their own views. And their playlist is not in the proper order. It’s not in the order that the videos, that the lectures happened. But that’s okay. But you know what’s at the top is my favorite, favorite video. And that is the panel discussion of experiencers and AOTI Archives of the Impossible Metadata Research Study. So, hey, good, good, good. Anyway, as far as I can tell, these are all the same videos that were already uploaded at their Rice Humanities YouTube channel. But there you go. More news as we try to wrap up this show as we approach the one -hour mark over at openculture .org. Whew! 2 ,178 occult books now digitized and put online thanks to the Rittman Library and Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown. Oh, no. Well, hey, thank you, Dan Brown, and thank you, Rittman Library, for the thousands of… occult books. Now, I wonder, I suspect some of these are ones that we have in our collection from the Bob Girard collection of very old, rare books. And we shall see. So if you click over to that, they’ve got a link to the archive. And kudos to everybody that was involved in that. This is important, important work. It helps preserve these materials and it helps make them more widely available across the world. Thank you. In other news, over at antiquetrader .com, Cottingly fairy photos fetch 2 ,600 pounds at auction. A rare pair of Cottingly fairy photographs kept for decades by a woman who never stopped believing sold at auction on July 29th. Yes, these famous images, known hoaxes, but still a touching, nostalgic.

 

what if kind of sensation when one looks at these kinds of these, these old cotton leaf fairy images. Oh, and this one, this one of the weird, weirdly impish kind of curmudgeonly looking fairy with a big beard coming up to the young lady sitting in her dress on the grass. Great stuff. All right. Lastly, there’s of course more new videos over at Rupert Sheldrake’s YouTube channel. That’s YouTube .com slash at Rupert Sheldrake, PhD. And the one that got my attention was this plant intelligence is more mysterious than you think. The polarity of plants. He has since released another one, or I guess it was the same day. It hasn’t gotten as many views. Oh, I guess it’s longer. That’s why. Called Gateway to the Infimate, Psychedelics and Consciousness. Oh, it must be a lecture that he did at the York Drug Society. Yeah, this idea of plant intelligence has always fascinated me, and it’s part of why I was such a fan of Terrence McKenna’s. But as usual, I haven’t had the chance to really dig into this yet. There’s just so much to consume. I’m probably forgetting something. There were some other links I was going to talk about, but goodness gracious, that’s enough, right? All right. Well, thank you for joining us. Please like and subscribe. Hit the notification bell. Please become a Patreon member, even if it’s free at the free level. Really, if you can give a dollar a month, $2 a month, $5 a month, anything helps. And if you do the $10 or higher a month, that gets you access to our monthly lectures, which we’ve got coming up. Like I said, we’ve got Tui Snyder coming up on September 24th with her Travel, Tombstones, and Transformation talk that’s based off of her Around the World in 80 Graves book. So thank you. have a good one