[00:00:04] Welcome back to another episode of Tech
[00:00:06] Unhinged, where tech gets human. I’m
[00:00:07] your host, Rabia Javeed. My guest today
[00:00:10] has spent 30 years doing two things in
[00:00:12] parallel. Building enterprise software
[00:00:14] and quietly maintaining the record of
[00:00:17] UFO sightings on the planet. Most people
[00:00:20] don’t know about the second one.
[00:00:22] Christian Stephen started his career at
[00:00:24] General Electric in 1981. He then took a
[00:00:28] three-year break to work as a
[00:00:29] professional musician. He came back to
[00:00:32] implement AI and advanced technology at
[00:00:34] BP and GTE and in 202 he found April
[00:00:37] Logics. All of that time since 1994,
[00:00:40] he has also been the person building and
[00:00:42] running technology behind the National
[00:00:44] UFO reporting center. Christian, welcome
[00:00:46] to Tech Unhinged.
[00:00:47] >> Well, thank you very much, Robia. I’m
[00:00:49] very happy to be here.
[00:00:50] >> So glad to have you. Well, we’ll dive
[00:00:52] first into the ice breakers. question.
[00:00:55] You’ve had two careers running at the
[00:00:57] same time for three decades. So for our
[00:00:59] audience, enterprise, you were doing
[00:01:01] enterprise software by the day and UFO
[00:01:04] investigations by the night. Which one
[00:01:06] has taught you more about how people
[00:01:08] behave when they can’t explain anything?
[00:01:10] >> Well, I would I would certainly say the
[00:01:12] latter. The technology people I’ve dealt
[00:01:14] with, the software engineers, tended to
[00:01:17] um try and understand what they were
[00:01:18] doing and and not be too surprised by
[00:01:21] what happened. But in the UFO field, as
[00:01:23] you can imagine, people get blown away
[00:01:25] by sudden episodes, encounters that just
[00:01:28] are completely inexplicable to them. Um,
[00:01:31] a lot of people that report things to us
[00:01:33] have basically never really spent much
[00:01:36] time reading about or studying or even
[00:01:39] being aware of kind of the whole UFO
[00:01:41] field. So, you can imagine if if you’re
[00:01:43] out in your backyard, you know, taking
[00:01:45] the dog out at night and you look up and
[00:01:47] you see a giant triangle hovering over
[00:01:48] your house that’s making no sound at
[00:01:50] all. and then suddenly within a split
[00:01:52] second it’s off at the horizon. Those
[00:01:54] are some pretty confounding um
[00:01:56] experiences. And what we find is people
[00:02:00] really are just simply genuinely amazed
[00:02:03] by what they’re seeing. They they want
[00:02:05] to reach out. They want to, you know,
[00:02:06] speak to somebody about it. Um one of
[00:02:09] the things that we do is actually run a
[00:02:10] hotline so you can call in and talk to
[00:02:12] um talk to people and especially Peter
[00:02:14] Davenport who’s really been immersed in
[00:02:17] the UFO field for his entire career. and
[00:02:19] they are certainly surprised by what
[00:02:21] they saw. It changes their entire
[00:02:24] worldview, their entire paradigm of
[00:02:26] what’s possible and what’s real. So it
[00:02:29] pretty uh existential experiences for
[00:02:31] some people.
[00:02:32] >> No, no, I can I can imagine, you know,
[00:02:34] seeing something that you have no
[00:02:36] pre-context for and then into it
[00:02:39] >> and then having someone believe into
[00:02:41] what you saw because you’ve got no proof
[00:02:43] for that or probably no time to capture
[00:02:45] it on the camera. Well, that could be
[00:02:47] really fascinating. Or
[00:02:48] >> Yeah. And you also run into the problem
[00:02:50] that, you know, you tell your friends
[00:02:51] and family and sometimes they just think
[00:02:53] you’re crazy. They don’t believe you.
[00:02:54] Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
[00:02:57] They just say, “Oh, you just saw an
[00:02:58] airplane. You were you’re just all mixed
[00:03:00] up.” But
[00:03:00] >> yeah, I mean, the only people who will
[00:03:02] believe you are the ones who are either
[00:03:04] into things like these or they’ve had a
[00:03:06] certain experience in their own lives.
[00:03:08] Otherwise, I people believe you. They
[00:03:10] just think that you’re a bit crazy in
[00:03:12] the head. you probably didn’t take or
[00:03:15] you probably didn’t sleep your whole
[00:03:16] night. Well, um, a bit of a detour into,
[00:03:20] you know, your career and your
[00:03:22] professional detours that you did. You
[00:03:23] also took off three years off in the
[00:03:25] middle of your corporate career to be a
[00:03:27] professional musician. What did you play
[00:03:29] and do you think that chapter influenced
[00:03:32] who you are today?
[00:03:33] >> Yeah, I I played the saxophone. That was
[00:03:36] my primary instrument. And um, this was
[00:03:37] in my 20s, so so many many many years
[00:03:40] ago, primarily back in the 80s. kind of
[00:03:42] dates me for how old I am, but I played
[00:03:45] in a a jazz fusion band. We wrote our
[00:03:48] own music. We played in clubs. We did
[00:03:51] opening acts. Um, it was a lot of fun
[00:03:53] and I was able to collaborate with some
[00:03:55] of the top musicians and we were in
[00:03:57] Cleveland, Ohio at the time. And we made
[00:03:59] quite a name for ourselves and it it was
[00:04:01] just a lot of fun. In the end, what it
[00:04:04] made me realize is it’s tough to make it
[00:04:06] in life as a as a working musician. So,
[00:04:09] I kind of I I did have a master’s degree
[00:04:11] in in software engineering and computers
[00:04:13] and experience from General Electric.
[00:04:15] And so, I went back into uh into the
[00:04:18] software field and got involved with um
[00:04:20] basically a small company in Washington
[00:04:22] that was developing product configurator
[00:04:24] software and then eventually kind of
[00:04:25] took that out and and started my own
[00:04:28] company and that was the rest of my
[00:04:30] career. And did you ever had a report
[00:04:32] which said that there was a certain kind
[00:04:33] of music that they were playing and
[00:04:35] something started happening in the sky
[00:04:37] up there?
[00:04:39] >> I haven’t I don’t think I’ve heard that.
[00:04:41] I I have heard um something going on
[00:04:43] right now called the UFO dog whistle
[00:04:46] where somebody seems to have invented
[00:04:48] something that will emit certain
[00:04:50] frequencies that are sort of basically
[00:04:53] thinking that this attracts UFOs. And
[00:04:55] I’ve actually had a couple reports where
[00:04:57] people built one of these things. You
[00:04:58] can get the specs online for it and you
[00:05:00] can actually play these sounds in your
[00:05:01] phone and they say that they’ve seen
[00:05:02] something show up, but I think the jury
[00:05:04] is kind of still out on that one.
[00:05:06] >> Yeah, absolutely. you know uh I think
[00:05:08] it’s just super fascinating that how at
[00:05:10] certain points in your life you’re able
[00:05:12] to connect everything and then you know
[00:05:14] it’s it’s it’s a full circle something
[00:05:16] that you studied or did as a profession
[00:05:18] and then you know there comes a point
[00:05:19] where things start making sense for you
[00:05:21] that probably that was that wasn’t that
[00:05:24] was a part of my life for a certain
[00:05:25] reason so that I could make sense of
[00:05:26] where I am today or this particular
[00:05:29] report that I have in front of me but no
[00:05:32] you know that’s that’s great to have um
[00:05:34] a software engineer and a UFO guy who
[00:05:37] was a musician as well. So, um,
[00:05:40] >> yeah, it’s probably a pretty rare
[00:05:41] combination out there, although there’s
[00:05:43] probably a few more of us, I bet.
[00:05:45] >> Question, after 30 years of doing this,
[00:05:47] if every sighting that you had reported
[00:05:50] turned out to be a boring explanation,
[00:05:52] would that be a relief for you or would
[00:05:54] you be a bit disappointed? I
[00:05:57] >> I think it would probably be a little
[00:05:59] bit of both, but probably more on the
[00:06:02] disappointment side, honestly. And I
[00:06:04] I’ll tell you, I just don’t think that’s
[00:06:06] going to happen. There’s just so much uh
[00:06:10] evidence, so many eyewitness reports out
[00:06:13] there. Sensor technology is involving,
[00:06:16] and we’ll talk about that later about
[00:06:17] what people are starting to actually
[00:06:19] collect is is more what you would call
[00:06:21] hard scientific proof. I think it it
[00:06:23] would be a little disappointing to find
[00:06:25] out that, you know, we are alone here
[00:06:27] and nobody’s around but us. But at the
[00:06:31] same time, you know, the whole UFO
[00:06:33] phenomenon, if you if you really get
[00:06:35] into it, you start to realize that
[00:06:37] whatever these non-human intelligence
[00:06:39] are that have these technologies and and
[00:06:42] craft, they can run circles around us.
[00:06:45] We really really have no power
[00:06:47] whatsoever against them if they were to
[00:06:49] turn, you know, hostile towards us or
[00:06:51] try to do something to the planet.
[00:06:53] Luckily, they haven’t done that so far.
[00:06:55] They’re kind of keeping their distance.
[00:06:56] you know, they’re certainly not trying
[00:06:58] to completely hide from us because we
[00:07:01] see them all the time, but they’re not,
[00:07:03] you know, landing on the White House
[00:07:04] lawn like you’ve heard and and trying to
[00:07:06] interfere with our our normal crazy
[00:07:08] political processes that we seem to be
[00:07:10] so well in control of ourselves. So,
[00:07:12] >> no, I hear you. You know, I’ I’ve
[00:07:14] watched a bunch of stuff around this and
[00:07:16] as real as it looks, you know, it’s
[00:07:18] insane if someday one of these things is
[00:07:20] going to happen for for real. And I
[00:07:23] don’t think that we are prepared for
[00:07:24] that.
[00:07:26] Yeah. So question we’re going to talk a
[00:07:28] bit about um why this particular field
[00:07:31] of UFO has been um you know stuck. So
[00:07:34] UFO reports have been treated as
[00:07:36] anecdotes not data and it’s it’s been
[00:07:39] done for decades now. What has actually
[00:07:41] kept this from becoming a serious
[00:07:42] scientific inquiry? Is it still the
[00:07:44] stigma, the technology or something
[00:07:46] else?
[00:07:47] >> Well, I think the number one reason is
[00:07:49] certainly the stigma. You know, the US
[00:07:51] government um for seven years has done
[00:07:54] its best to kind of poo poo the whole
[00:07:56] situation, try and explain away every
[00:07:58] sighting that they possibly can. You
[00:08:00] know, Project Blue Book was basically a
[00:08:03] a debunking exercise where every
[00:08:05] sighting that was reported, they tried
[00:08:07] to come up with some plausible
[00:08:08] explanation. And certainly I I would say
[00:08:10] the vast majority of UFO sightings are
[00:08:13] probably do have plausible explanations,
[00:08:15] but it’s that 10% or you know 5 to 10%
[00:08:18] that are extremely anomalous that can’t
[00:08:21] possibly be explained by any natural
[00:08:23] phenomenon or any human technology that
[00:08:27] really make the case for some kind of a
[00:08:29] nonhuman intelligence. You know,
[00:08:31] people’s careers were at risk for many
[00:08:34] many years if they were to delve into
[00:08:36] this. Um, scientists could ruin their
[00:08:38] reputation. Pilots could lose their
[00:08:40] licenses. You could be kicked out of the
[00:08:42] military. And when there were dramatic
[00:08:44] sightings with the military, people were
[00:08:46] rushed into a back room somewhere and
[00:08:48] forced to sign NDAs and told they’re
[00:08:51] sworn to secrecy for the rest of their
[00:08:53] lives. So, you know, it’s been a
[00:08:55] difficult field for hard science to kind
[00:08:58] of penetrate because of this, you know,
[00:09:01] stigma or, you know, aura around it that
[00:09:04] if you get involved with this, you’re
[00:09:05] just crazy. You know, a lot of
[00:09:06] physicists were just convinced the speed
[00:09:08] of light is the speed of light. You
[00:09:09] can’t crack it. You know, so it’s
[00:09:11] basically they predetermined the
[00:09:13] conclusion that no one could be here.
[00:09:15] Nobody could be visiting here from
[00:09:16] somewhere else because it’s impossible.
[00:09:18] But it’s clearly not impossible because
[00:09:20] it clearly is actually happening and
[00:09:23] anyone who delves into this topic will
[00:09:25] discover that for themselves. Um there’s
[00:09:27] been some studies done on scientists and
[00:09:30] what they believe about the subject. Um
[00:09:32] there’s a great book by Robert Powell
[00:09:34] called um UFOs, what science knows and
[00:09:37] doesn’t know about it that that I’d
[00:09:38] recommend. But he he re references a
[00:09:40] study where they looked at how much time
[00:09:43] and a scientist has spent actually
[00:09:45] looking into the subject versus how much
[00:09:47] they believed in it. And there was a
[00:09:49] clear correlation that the more time
[00:09:50] they spent actually studying the
[00:09:52] evidence and what’s out there, the more
[00:09:53] they came to realize and and basically
[00:09:55] come out and say, “Yeah, this is
[00:09:57] something real deserves our attention.”
[00:09:58] >> Christian, you’ve have over 150,000
[00:10:00] reports all written differently by
[00:10:03] different people. There’s no particular
[00:10:05] standard or format for them. So before
[00:10:07] AI came along, what could you actually
[00:10:10] do with that at a scale?
[00:10:12] >> We could do things like, you know, plot
[00:10:15] geographical information, you know,
[00:10:17] where were the most sightings per capita
[00:10:19] happening. There was some studies done
[00:10:21] actually by Arrow and the University of
[00:10:24] Utah that took our data and and
[00:10:26] basically did some analysis on it. And
[00:10:28] what the conclusions they came up with
[00:10:30] were things that were kind of common
[00:10:31] sense like people see more UFOs where
[00:10:33] they have a more open view of the sky,
[00:10:35] you know. So out west and in and kind of
[00:10:37] like you know remote Nevada and remote
[00:10:40] eastern Oregon and eastern Washington
[00:10:42] where skies are clear and horizon you
[00:10:44] can see out to the horizons people would
[00:10:46] see more things. There’s also some
[00:10:48] interesting hotspots on the east coast.
[00:10:49] You know we could make our own kind of
[00:10:52] judgments. I think the people who were
[00:10:54] actually looking at all the individual
[00:10:56] reports and there’s there’s really very
[00:10:58] few of us that do that. Myself, Peter
[00:11:00] Davenport who runs the center, um some
[00:11:02] of the people at MUON who’ve really, you
[00:11:04] know, actually read and talked to
[00:11:06] witnesses and gone through thousands and
[00:11:09] thousands of reports themselves, you
[00:11:10] come to a conclusion that there’s really
[00:11:13] something here. You know, you can’t just
[00:11:15] throw it away. People like to discount
[00:11:18] anecdotal testimony, but at the same
[00:11:20] time, you can convict somebody of murder
[00:11:23] based on an eyewitness account, but if
[00:11:25] they see a UFO, no, we we can’t believe
[00:11:28] that. That’s just ridiculous, right? So,
[00:11:31] >> yeah. Yeah, pretty much. But that was
[00:11:34] that was a very important point that you
[00:11:36] made and we will explore more of it you
[00:11:38] know in the next questions that we have
[00:11:40] because now we’re going to delve into
[00:11:42] given the AI’s boom you know we um we
[00:11:45] would want to understand a bit from you
[00:11:47] that how it has changed things in this
[00:11:49] space one of your partners recently ran
[00:11:51] an AI analysis across 150,000 reports
[00:11:54] tagging everyone across 35 dimensions
[00:11:56] some of what came back was striking like
[00:11:59] how triangles are reported at night
[00:12:01] seven times more often during during the
[00:12:04] day and the discshaped objects are five
[00:12:07] times more likely to involve reports of
[00:12:09] being uh beings than squares. So when
[00:12:11] you saw the results like that, was any
[00:12:14] of it genuinely new to you or did it
[00:12:16] confirm things you’ suspected for years?
[00:12:18] >> Uh I think some of the uh the trends and
[00:12:21] the correlations he found out were
[00:12:23] interesting and and somewhat new to us.
[00:12:25] Certainly the uh the flying saucer a you
[00:12:28] know entity connection that’s been well
[00:12:30] known for for a long time. people who
[00:12:32] see flying saucers at close range often
[00:12:34] have on ship experiences or see beings
[00:12:38] you know in their bedrooms things like
[00:12:40] that I think what’s you know what Brian
[00:12:43] did which by the way I just want to make
[00:12:44] a shout out to Brian Decker who did that
[00:12:46] work and his website anmatic Ideas which
[00:12:49] um people should check out it’s
[00:12:50] interesting he’s he’s kind of broken the
[00:12:52] ground for what what we can do and he
[00:12:55] kind of explored some avenues that were
[00:12:58] false starts like trying to do
[00:13:00] vectorzing of our data which just
[00:13:02] basically kind of grouped things by
[00:13:04] style more than content. But with the um
[00:13:08] what he found and and we’re really
[00:13:10] excited about is that with the you know
[00:13:12] the evolution of the LLMs today um and
[00:13:14] their ability to make sense of text. I
[00:13:17] mean we’ve got this vast amount of text
[00:13:20] and it’s it’s a very unique resource and
[00:13:22] we don’t have the ability to basically
[00:13:24] go back through and read 150,000 reports
[00:13:27] ourselves and try and make correlations
[00:13:29] and things like that. But with machines
[00:13:32] now and AI, we can pull out, you know,
[00:13:34] attribute data. You know, if you ask a
[00:13:36] question like how many, you know, go
[00:13:39] back through every report and tag
[00:13:40] everyone where the ship was within 50 ft
[00:13:42] of the witness, we can do that. Cost is
[00:13:45] an object, of course. It might be a
[00:13:47] little bit of a constraint for a
[00:13:48] lowbudget nonprofit like us, but we
[00:13:51] still uh we can still take a stab at it.
[00:13:53] And Brian did some interesting work on
[00:13:55] how to minimize costs and things like
[00:13:57] that. So, so we’re really excited and
[00:13:59] and we’re going to be um running some
[00:14:02] we’re really going to be trying to do
[00:14:03] some AI work ourselves to try and
[00:14:05] certainly go back through our database
[00:14:07] and extract more meaningful trends,
[00:14:11] correlations, patterns out of it and
[00:14:14] potentially write some papers that we
[00:14:15] can get published.
[00:14:16] >> No, I think that’s that’s a very
[00:14:18] interesting phase to move into. Now, if
[00:14:21] we look at the other side of it where AI
[00:14:23] is actually earning its place, you know,
[00:14:25] in the UFO research, where do you think
[00:14:27] that it still misses things that a good
[00:14:30] human investigator could catch?
[00:14:32] >> Well, I think it’s still when you’re
[00:14:34] looking at videos and images, it’s
[00:14:36] still, I think, difficult for AIs to
[00:14:39] kind of make out what they’re looking
[00:14:40] at. P mostly because our videos and our
[00:14:43] images that we get are always kind of
[00:14:45] the things are off in the distance.
[00:14:47] They’re grainy. But if you see a balloon
[00:14:49] floating by and you’ve looked at, you
[00:14:51] know, a thousand UFO videos and you
[00:14:54] recognize eventually what a balloon
[00:14:56] looks like, you know, it’s kind of
[00:14:57] rotating around, maybe glinting a little
[00:14:59] bit, things like that. I imagine you
[00:15:01] could train an AI system on something
[00:15:02] like that, but um I don’t think
[00:15:04] anybody’s done that so far except there
[00:15:07] is a project going on at Harvard with
[00:15:10] Avi Lobe and the Galileo group where
[00:15:12] they are building really high techch
[00:15:15] camera systems that they can deploy and
[00:15:17] they’ll be watching the sky 24/7 and if
[00:15:21] they see something going by they’re
[00:15:22] developing AI software that can
[00:15:25] basically do what I just described
[00:15:27] identify is it an aircraft, is it a
[00:15:29] balloon, or hopefully, you know,
[00:15:31] eventually they’ll be able to tag
[00:15:33] something that’s extremely anomalous and
[00:15:35] they can basically point to something
[00:15:36] and say, “Hey, here’s something that
[00:15:38] we’re certain we didn’t make.” You know,
[00:15:41] what is it?
[00:15:42] >> Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:42] >> Here’s the proof we’ve been looking for.
[00:15:44] That’s what we’re all hoping for.
[00:15:45] >> Yeah. But then, you know, there is there
[00:15:47] is a certain risk that is buried here as
[00:15:50] well. If you know AI is deciding what’s
[00:15:53] significant, could it eventually start
[00:15:55] shaping these findings and could the
[00:15:57] patterns it it surfaces reflect its own
[00:15:59] blind spots rather than what’s actually
[00:16:01] in the sky because it tends to
[00:16:03] hallucinate too.
[00:16:04] >> Sure. Sure it can. But I think, you
[00:16:06] know, that’s where it’s going to take
[00:16:08] human beings to always stay in the loop.
[00:16:10] And basically, if if AI is is saying,
[00:16:12] “Hey, there’s something here and it’s
[00:16:14] important that we look at it.” Then I
[00:16:16] think people are certainly going to put
[00:16:18] their eyeballs on that and and make
[00:16:20] their own determinations and say, “Well,
[00:16:21] AI, you’re somewhat mistaken on that
[00:16:24] analysis or wow, you really found
[00:16:26] something. Let’s uh let’s spend more
[00:16:27] time and and point some more sensors at
[00:16:29] it.”
[00:16:30] >> Yeah. No question. Before we dive into
[00:16:32] the um technicalities of you know what
[00:16:35] passive radar or nemesis is, I would
[00:16:38] want to know what’s your um what’s your
[00:16:40] take on Bermuda Triangle or the um
[00:16:45] disappearing planes? Um do you guys
[00:16:47] often get to hear things about those?
[00:16:48] >> No, we don’t. We don’t. I mean, the
[00:16:50] Bermuda Triangle that was a famous
[00:16:52] story, you know, 20, 30 years ago. We
[00:16:54] really don’t hear about it much anymore.
[00:16:56] I don’t personally put a lot of
[00:16:58] credibility in in that kind of a thing.
[00:17:00] What we see is UFOs everywhere. I mean,
[00:17:03] literally everywhere, anybody. And and
[00:17:05] we encourage people spend more time
[00:17:07] outside. Go out in your backyard and
[00:17:09] look up because you might be the lucky
[00:17:11] one or if you consider yourself maybe
[00:17:13] the unlucky one who happens to see
[00:17:15] something um and depending on how close
[00:17:17] it gets. So, you know, the Bermuda
[00:17:20] Triangle stories, some of some of the
[00:17:22] legends, you know, the ancient
[00:17:23] astronauts things, we we don’t put a lot
[00:17:25] of credence in that. We really are
[00:17:28] trying to kind of really look at reality
[00:17:30] and what’s really out there and what
[00:17:31] people see today. And they’re they’re
[00:17:34] very interested in our nuclear
[00:17:36] capabilities. There’s no question about
[00:17:37] that. Back in the 60s, in the late60s,
[00:17:40] um there were dramatic incidents over
[00:17:42] some of our nuclear missile sites in
[00:17:45] Montana and out west where entire
[00:17:48] flights of of control systems went down
[00:17:51] and people the missile officers saw
[00:17:53] giant flying saucers hovering over the
[00:17:56] base. So, you know, when you talk about
[00:17:57] technology, and I know this is a tech
[00:17:59] podcast, you know, we have our
[00:18:01] technology, but their technology is
[00:18:03] better.
[00:18:05] I mean, and their their technology has
[00:18:07] has done things that we just can’t even
[00:18:10] begin to imagine how it’s done. You
[00:18:12] know, how can something hovering over a
[00:18:14] nucle in the 60s, right? These are, you
[00:18:16] know, it’s still sophisticated
[00:18:18] circuitry, but it’s primarily analog
[00:18:19] circuitry and things like that, but
[00:18:21] they’re able to go in and actually
[00:18:23] interfere with that remotely somehow
[00:18:25] from a craft that’s hovering, you know,
[00:18:27] a few hundred feet over the base. How is
[00:18:29] that possible? And teams of the top
[00:18:31] Boeing engineers came out after that and
[00:18:34] analyzed it every which way they
[00:18:35] possibly could to try and figure out
[00:18:37] what happened and just basically came up
[00:18:38] with a blank and said, “It’s
[00:18:40] impossible.” These were some of the most
[00:18:41] redundant systems ever designed in our
[00:18:43] history because they were so important.
[00:18:45] You know, nuclear missile safety and,
[00:18:47] you know, the ability to deter an attack
[00:18:49] from Russia during the Cold War. That
[00:18:51] was where we were putting all our
[00:18:52] resources. And these guys just operated
[00:18:55] it like it was their own personal
[00:18:57] system.
[00:18:58] >> So, uh, question, were you always a
[00:19:00] believer or were you turned into one
[00:19:02] when you joined UFO?
[00:19:03] >> I would I don’t know if I’ve always been
[00:19:05] a believer, but I’ve always been super
[00:19:08] interested. To me, it’s one of the most
[00:19:10] fascinating topics you can get involved
[00:19:13] with, right? And it it’s one of the core
[00:19:15] questions of humanity. Are we alone or
[00:19:17] are we not alone? And clearly, we’re
[00:19:20] not. I think society is eventually going
[00:19:22] to catch up with that fact and we’ll see
[00:19:24] what that does to the global
[00:19:26] consciousness.
[00:19:27] >> Yeah.
[00:19:27] >> All right. So, you know, let’s dive into
[00:19:30] the passive radars. Now, witness will
[00:19:32] always carry some subjectivity. So, now
[00:19:35] we’re going to talk a bit about
[00:19:36] hardware. What is passive radar in plain
[00:19:39] terms and why are you building it?
[00:19:40] >> Well, first of all, it’s not us that’s
[00:19:42] building it. It’s a company called
[00:19:43] Eldion that’s basically has uh units for
[00:19:47] sale for $500 that you can buy. And
[00:19:49] there’s always been an interest in in
[00:19:51] the UFO community to to get some kind of
[00:19:54] actual detectors that can detect thing.
[00:19:56] There was a project called the MADAR
[00:19:57] project that’s been out there for
[00:19:59] probably at least 10 years where they
[00:20:01] built sensors that you could put in your
[00:20:04] in your house that detected changes in
[00:20:06] say uh background radiation
[00:20:09] um compass variations, electromagnetic
[00:20:12] magnetic field variations and Basil
[00:20:14] could send out an alert um if something
[00:20:17] kind of went off norm and then you could
[00:20:19] correlate that with witness sightings
[00:20:22] and that was a project that was that’s
[00:20:24] still going on to this day. So passive
[00:20:27] radar is different different than normal
[00:20:29] radar in this way. A normal radar
[00:20:31] system, the kind you see, you know, on
[00:20:33] our battleships and airports and things
[00:20:35] like that, has a transmitter and it
[00:20:37] sends out a signal that bounces off an
[00:20:40] aircraft or whatever it is. Normally
[00:20:43] airplanes or aircraft or if you’re at
[00:20:45] sea perhaps ships and based on the
[00:20:48] return signal from that, you can
[00:20:50] determine how far away that thing is and
[00:20:52] what direction it is and that kind of
[00:20:54] thing. Passive radar is different in
[00:20:56] that there’s no transmitter. You’re
[00:20:57] basically kind of piggybacking off the
[00:21:00] transmitters that are already out there
[00:21:02] in your vicinity, which are generally FM
[00:21:05] radio stations and TV stations. So, they
[00:21:08] also broadcast signals that also bounce
[00:21:11] off aircraft and also can be picked up
[00:21:14] by receivers. So you can build a very
[00:21:16] lowcost receiver that can basically
[00:21:19] receive simultaneously a signal from say
[00:21:21] a TV transmitter for your local area and
[00:21:24] be scanning the sky for any return
[00:21:27] signals that kind of match that signal.
[00:21:30] So based on the Doppler shift of those
[00:21:33] radio signals, you can imagine a TV
[00:21:35] station is going up, hitting an
[00:21:37] airplane, bouncing back. There’s going
[00:21:38] to be a difference in that signal when
[00:21:40] it hits your receiver. And you can
[00:21:42] analyze that difference to determine
[00:21:44] basically where an object is on kind of
[00:21:47] an elliptical path around you. So you
[00:21:49] can’t tell exactly where it is, but you
[00:21:51] can kind of place it on on an ellipsus.
[00:21:53] And then if you get say three of these
[00:21:56] systems in a general area, you can
[00:21:58] actually triangulate that object and
[00:22:00] then you can actually tell exactly where
[00:22:02] it is, exactly how fast it’s going, and
[00:22:05] if it’s making kind of strange turns.
[00:22:07] You know, UFOs are known to make
[00:22:09] non-inertial turns where they might be
[00:22:11] going at like Mach 5 and suddenly
[00:22:13] they’re going 90 degrees in a different
[00:22:15] direction at the same speed, which is
[00:22:17] basically physically impossible for us
[00:22:19] to do. So, you could detect things like
[00:22:20] that. And if we can get enough of these
[00:22:22] systems out there and get enough of
[00:22:24] these detections, then we can actually
[00:22:26] start doing what’s called citizen
[00:22:27] disclosure where we do our own science
[00:22:29] and we release our own data and we don’t
[00:22:31] depend on the government to do it. So,
[00:22:33] that’s the hope and this is just, you
[00:22:35] know, these units are just coming out.
[00:22:37] You can you can go look up Nemesis
[00:22:39] passive radar or go to ldon.com and and
[00:22:42] you can take a look at them and um it’s
[00:22:44] an exciting technology.
[00:22:46] >> Yeah. And you know, why does this need
[00:22:48] to live in people’s backyards rather
[00:22:50] than in government facilities?
[00:22:52] >> Well, you want first of all, we we want
[00:22:54] this in our own hands. We don’t want
[00:22:55] this in the government’s hands, right?
[00:22:57] We don’t necessarily trust the
[00:22:59] government on this subject.
[00:23:02] They’ve not earned our trust, let’s say,
[00:23:04] over 75 years. If we can do this
[00:23:07] ourselves as as just interested
[00:23:10] citizens, that’s fantastic. We and and
[00:23:13] what people are looking for again, you
[00:23:15] know, we go back to the, you know,
[00:23:16] people don’t trust eyewitness testimony.
[00:23:18] even sometimes when it comes from, you
[00:23:20] know, our Top Gun pilots, really trained
[00:23:23] military observers, and we’ve had plenty
[00:23:25] of them report UFOs, dramatic sightings,
[00:23:27] but scientists tend to trust what their
[00:23:30] instruments tell them. So, this is
[00:23:32] instrumentation, and it can gather hard
[00:23:34] data that’s going to be hard to refute,
[00:23:36] you know, if you can get enough of it.
[00:23:38] Now, it’s still an open question on
[00:23:39] whether these things are going to pick
[00:23:40] up anything at all. It’s it’s basically
[00:23:42] a big experiment because we don’t know
[00:23:44] if the UFOs have, you know, radar
[00:23:47] deflecting surfaces or whether they do.
[00:23:50] We do know though that some UFOs
[00:23:53] certainly do trigger radar. I don’t know
[00:23:56] if you’re familiar with the uh the
[00:23:58] tic-tac UFO that was cited off San Diego
[00:24:01] back in 2004. Do you know about that
[00:24:03] case?
[00:24:04] >> No.
[00:24:04] >> It’s one of the really famous ones.
[00:24:07] Pentagon actually came out and released
[00:24:08] the video of that and David Fraver,
[00:24:10] who’s one of our top pilots, basically
[00:24:12] got his eyes on the thing. But what
[00:24:14] happened was we had a uh carrier strike
[00:24:17] group out off San Diego in 2004 testing
[00:24:20] new radar systems and they started
[00:24:22] picking up these objects at 80,000 ft
[00:24:25] that would descend to 10,000 ft in a
[00:24:27] split second. And there’s nothing that
[00:24:30] we have that can possibly do that. And
[00:24:32] then they would go back up to 40,000 ft.
[00:24:34] Then they’d be back up to 80,000 ft.
[00:24:36] then back down to 10. And these the guys
[00:24:38] on these radar systems were like, “Hey,
[00:24:39] we’re seeing this stuff. We don’t
[00:24:41] understand it. It’s impossible. It’s got
[00:24:43] to be something wrong with the radar
[00:24:45] systems.” But then they they picked it
[00:24:46] up on multiple ships, you know, multiple
[00:24:48] radar systems. And they did all the
[00:24:51] tests and they said, “No, it seems to be
[00:24:53] something that’s really out there.” And
[00:24:54] they could triangulate on where that
[00:24:56] object was at a given time when it came
[00:24:59] down and was right over the ocean. So
[00:25:00] they sent one of the pilots out to see
[00:25:02] it and he got close enough that he
[00:25:04] basically was able to see it on his
[00:25:06] forward looking infrared cameras and
[00:25:08] pick it up and you can see this. It’s
[00:25:10] about a 40ft kind of rectangular ship
[00:25:14] shaped almost looks like a tic tac you
[00:25:16] know but it’s just skimming over the
[00:25:18] ocean at incred incredible speeds and
[00:25:20] then they would track it you know it
[00:25:22] would be 30 or 40 miles away in a split
[00:25:24] second. So the point of that I guess is
[00:25:27] they do show up on radar. Some of them,
[00:25:29] maybe not all of them, but some of them.
[00:25:31] So if we have our own passive radar
[00:25:33] systems, hopefully we can start picking
[00:25:35] up some of these things ourselves.
[00:25:36] >> No, no, absolutely. And you know, um, an
[00:25:39] important question, what changes about
[00:25:42] credibility of sighting when it’s no
[00:25:44] longer just one person’s account, but a
[00:25:46] signal that shows up across dozens of
[00:25:48] independent sensors at the same time?
[00:25:50] >> Yeah. Then science has to pay attention.
[00:25:52] you know, these these scientists who
[00:25:54] like, you know, there there’s some
[00:25:55] famous scientists who no matter, you
[00:25:57] know, will go on CNN and just swear all
[00:26:00] UFOs are nonsense. And if they if if you
[00:26:03] put this sensor data in front of them
[00:26:04] and just basically say, look, this is
[00:26:06] these are actual readings that we’re
[00:26:08] getting from, you know, certified
[00:26:09] equipment, it gets extremely hard for
[00:26:11] them to deny it. It it’s easy to
[00:26:13] basically say something somebody saw is
[00:26:15] nonsense, but if you’ve got repeatable,
[00:26:18] you know, hard sensor data, that’s
[00:26:20] that’s a different world. Yeah. And I
[00:26:22] >> not to discount the eyewitness testimony
[00:26:24] though because again, you know, I mean,
[00:26:26] we’ve got extremely
[00:26:28] credible and well-trained people, pilots
[00:26:31] that have seen these things. And I will
[00:26:34] say that, you know, the tide does seem
[00:26:36] to be shifting. The government is
[00:26:38] certainly, you know, certainly Congress
[00:26:39] is getting much more interested in this.
[00:26:41] There’s been congressional hearings over
[00:26:42] the last couple years and people are
[00:26:44] starting to take it more seriously and
[00:26:46] there are a lot of uh uh well I wouldn’t
[00:26:48] say a lot but a few people in Congress
[00:26:49] that are really doggedly going after
[00:26:52] this. Arrow was established, you know,
[00:26:54] several years ago to kind of try and get
[00:26:56] to the bottom of things and I think they
[00:26:58] had a rough start, but I think they’re
[00:27:00] trying to they’re doing a good job now
[00:27:02] of analyzing what information is put in
[00:27:04] front of them and and basically there
[00:27:06] are some things that they they’ll come
[00:27:08] out and they say we just can’t explain
[00:27:10] some of these sightings.
[00:27:11] >> So while you know we keep things honest,
[00:27:14] this field attracts everyone from
[00:27:16] rigorous scientists to people who’ve
[00:27:18] already decided what the answer is. How
[00:27:20] do you stay credible without becoming a
[00:27:23] skeptic? Because it’s like it’s it’s an
[00:27:24] effort on a day-to-day still, you know,
[00:27:26] for you guys and your team.
[00:27:28] >> I think, you know, we we just encourage
[00:27:30] people to have an open mind about these
[00:27:32] things. I mean, everybody has to make up
[00:27:34] their minds for themselves. Some people
[00:27:35] will never believe. Some people believe
[00:27:37] too much and some people believe just
[00:27:40] right. It’s like Goldilocks, right? But
[00:27:43] I think our focus is on trying to just
[00:27:46] like you said to be as credible as
[00:27:48] possible. We’re not trying to
[00:27:49] sensationalize things. We’re not trying
[00:27:52] to, you know, promote crazy theories
[00:27:55] about, you know, whatever.
[00:27:58] >> Yeah.
[00:27:58] >> We’re just really trying to be have a
[00:28:00] lot of common sense about it and and
[00:28:02] realize that reality is it just is what
[00:28:05] it is. You know, no matter how hard you
[00:28:07] believe something doesn’t exist, if it
[00:28:09] actually exists, it does exist. You
[00:28:12] know, so you can you can try and poo poo
[00:28:14] something forever and and it doesn’t
[00:28:16] mean that’s not true. No, absolutely.
[00:28:18] You know, when you when you tell that
[00:28:19] these like UFOs are way ahead of us when
[00:28:22] it comes to technology, it’s only like
[00:28:24] been 2 three years that AI has the boom
[00:28:27] now and people are already going crazy.
[00:28:29] It it it was the same when you know
[00:28:30] internet came in and there was a lot of
[00:28:32] talk about you know it replacing jobs
[00:28:34] and with AI doing the same thing. I mean
[00:28:36] there is a you know a consciousness
[00:28:38] aspect to this and and we can get into
[00:28:41] more of the esoteric sides of the
[00:28:43] phenomenon but there is the whole side
[00:28:45] of the people who’ve had encounters with
[00:28:47] with the flying saucers that saw the
[00:28:49] entities and interacted with them. And
[00:28:52] you know one of the things that’s
[00:28:53] commonly reported is all of the
[00:28:55] communication between aliens and people
[00:28:57] is telepathic. It’s never like you and I
[00:29:00] are talking you know where we’re sending
[00:29:02] sound waves through the air to
[00:29:03] communicate with each other. This is
[00:29:04] just direct braintobrain communication.
[00:29:07] So it’s not just their technology but
[00:29:09] perhaps also their consciousness and
[00:29:10] their you know what they are as as
[00:29:13] entities is very different and perhaps
[00:29:16] more advanced than we are maybe more
[00:29:18] advanced in some ways less advanced in
[00:29:20] other ways but
[00:29:21] >> absolutely and while we look forward
[00:29:23] question 5 to 10 years from now AI
[00:29:25] maturing radar network scaling up
[00:29:28] institutional pressure going on what
[00:29:30] does this look like when it stops being
[00:29:32] a matter of belief and starts being a
[00:29:34] matter of measurement
[00:29:35] >> well that’s an interesting question
[00:29:36] because that really um it really the
[00:29:39] question is what is society going to
[00:29:41] make of that? Right? You know, we’ve got
[00:29:42] a lot of uh religious ideas kind of
[00:29:45] embedded in our psyches from 2,000 years
[00:29:48] of believing religious, you know,
[00:29:51] religious dogma and things like that.
[00:29:53] So, some people believe they’re demons.
[00:29:55] There’s actually a large contingent that
[00:29:57] even within the US government that just
[00:29:59] believes they’re demons and we shouldn’t
[00:30:01] be messing with them. again, you know,
[00:30:02] if if the messages that they’ve been
[00:30:04] giving us are generally take care of the
[00:30:07] planet, that’s one of the things they
[00:30:08] tell people a lot. So if enough
[00:30:10] scientific proof comes out or you know
[00:30:12] the the absolutely definitive high-death
[00:30:15] video finally gets released by the
[00:30:17] government or enough government
[00:30:19] witnesses come out and say it’s true or
[00:30:23] enough hard sensor data is out there
[00:30:25] that it’s it’s proven beyond a shadow of
[00:30:27] a doubt. It does kind of turn things on
[00:30:29] its head as to what a lot of people
[00:30:30] believe about what the what the universe
[00:30:33] is really made of. So, how society,
[00:30:36] there’s been a lot of thinking about how
[00:30:37] society will react to something like
[00:30:39] that. Um, some people believe it’ll be
[00:30:41] devastating. Some people believe we’ll
[00:30:43] just be just fine with it and everywhere
[00:30:45] in between. But, we won’t really know
[00:30:47] until it actually happens. But, um, the
[00:30:49] the way things are going, it’s heading
[00:30:51] in that direction where there’s going to
[00:30:52] be plenty of evidence that I mean, there
[00:30:55] already is, but there’ll be more and
[00:30:57] more evidence that this is a real thing
[00:30:59] and that they’re really out there and
[00:31:00] they’re really here and they’re really
[00:31:02] interacting with us. No, that makes a
[00:31:03] lot of sense. And also, you know, before
[00:31:05] before I ask you my next question, you
[00:31:08] seem to be a believer and you had a lot
[00:31:10] of interest, you know, in the UFOs, but
[00:31:12] you must have people in your team who
[00:31:14] were not very much interested into this
[00:31:16] from the from the beginning, right? Was
[00:31:18] there any moments for them that turned
[00:31:20] them into loving, you know, what their
[00:31:23] job is about?
[00:31:25] >> Well, I think on on my team, I think
[00:31:27] everybody’s been interested in this from
[00:31:29] the beginning. We tend to attract people
[00:31:31] that that are very into this subject.
[00:31:33] >> All right.
[00:31:34] >> I think certainly uh people who who have
[00:31:38] seen something themselves can have a
[00:31:40] dramatic change of mind and get involved
[00:31:43] in the subject and and want to get
[00:31:45] involved and they do. From my personal
[00:31:47] experience, I I we mainly work with
[00:31:49] people who’ve always had an interest in
[00:31:51] this and and we also look for people who
[00:31:53] are experienced and know, you know, know
[00:31:54] what they’re dealing with, know the
[00:31:56] subject. And there’s other groups like
[00:31:58] Muon that, you know, have a much bigger
[00:32:00] team than we do and they’ve got
[00:32:02] investigators in every state and anybody
[00:32:04] can sign up to be a UFO investigator.
[00:32:06] And I think from all walks of life do
[00:32:08] that.
[00:32:09] >> Yeah. And you know there must be moments
[00:32:11] when you know you see something so real
[00:32:13] that it’s just probably at times hard to
[00:32:15] continue because you know that no one is
[00:32:17] probably going to trust you with that
[00:32:19] and that’s you know a larger than life
[00:32:22] kind of truth.
[00:32:23] >> Yeah. Well hopefully that’s changing. I
[00:32:25] I really do think the whole it it’s
[00:32:27] becoming a much more accepted subject,
[00:32:30] especially over the last 10 years. It’s
[00:32:31] really changed.
[00:32:32] >> Have you ever had one of the sightings
[00:32:34] yourself?
[00:32:35] >> No. No, I haven’t, unfortunately.
[00:32:38] >> Fingers crossed.
[00:32:38] >> But I have I have family members who
[00:32:40] have. I know plenty of close friends who
[00:32:43] have. I’m just not one of the lucky
[00:32:45] ones, I guess.
[00:32:46] >> Yeah. Yeah. So Christian for a young
[00:32:48] engineer or a data scientist you know
[00:32:50] who’s particularly drawn towards this
[00:32:52] field and wants to start off you know
[00:32:54] but they’re worried about the stigma
[00:32:56] that is still around it what would you
[00:32:58] tell them
[00:32:58] >> I would say don’t be afraid if you’re
[00:33:00] drawn to this field you know follow your
[00:33:02] heart go where you where your interests
[00:33:05] take you you’ll have a a much more
[00:33:07] joyful enjoyable life if you’re doing
[00:33:09] what you love than staying away from it
[00:33:11] because you’re afraid somebody’s going
[00:33:13] to come down on you and I do think it’s
[00:33:16] changing It’s becoming much more of an
[00:33:18] accepted field to get involved with. Um
[00:33:22] there are, like I said, there’s programs
[00:33:23] at Harvard. There’s US government
[00:33:25] programs that are actually, you know,
[00:33:27] hardcore looking into UFOs. Now, it’s
[00:33:30] just go for it. It’s you could really,
[00:33:33] you know, you could make a a big
[00:33:35] contribution to our understanding of the
[00:33:37] universe if you can crack some of these
[00:33:38] secrets open.
[00:33:39] >> Absolutely. I hope all of those um young
[00:33:42] lads and even the older ones are
[00:33:44] listening to you.
[00:33:45] >> Yeah. this is, you know, good motivation
[00:33:47] enough for them. So now, um, Christian,
[00:33:49] one of my most favorite and last
[00:33:50] questions before we end this, what’s the
[00:33:53] hardest lessons this work has taught you
[00:33:56] about the research or just about life in
[00:33:58] general?
[00:34:00] >> You did one at me at the end. The
[00:34:02] hardest lesson it’s taught me about this
[00:34:04] research, I think it’s still, you know,
[00:34:06] I still personally get, you know,
[00:34:09] sideways looks from people quite a bit
[00:34:11] when I tell them what I do. It’s a
[00:34:13] little disappointing to know that some
[00:34:16] people’s minds are so closed that they
[00:34:18] can’t, you know, accept these ideas that
[00:34:21] maybe are so foreign to them and that on
[00:34:23] their side they’ve been told this for
[00:34:25] like their entire lives that this is
[00:34:26] nonsense and crazy. But, you know, it
[00:34:29] would be nice if people had more open
[00:34:31] minds about reality and what the real
[00:34:33] possibilities of what’s really out there
[00:34:35] is.
[00:34:35] >> No, absolutely. You’re right. Well,
[00:34:38] Christian, thank you so much. This has
[00:34:41] really been a fascinating conversation.
[00:34:43] Thank you for your time.
[00:34:44] >> Thank you, Robia. It’s been a pleasure.
[00:34:46] >> Yeah, likewise. And to everyone
[00:34:47] listening, thank you for joining us on
[00:34:49] Tech Unhinged. We’ll see you in the next
[00:34:50] episode.
