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journalist Leslie Kane and Ralph Blumenthal explains how this breaking news story came to light
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join us as we get proposedly curious Ralph and Leslie thank you so much for joining me on rebelliously Curious today
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the past 24 hours for me and everyone at the debrief has been unbelievable and we thank you for bringing the story to us
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so thank you for joining me today thank you Percy it's a really great to be with you good to see you too so this is a
Chapter 2: Sourcing and verification
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bombshell of a story can you start off by just mostly people know now but for some people that maybe is just catching up to this and we'll have some of those
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people as well can you explain how this started with Dave grosh and how you ended up getting the story and some of the moving parts
1:51
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of how this all came to be I've heard of I heard about Dave grush for a while from various sources that I have who know him as sort of a group of
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people that I'm in contact with pretty regularly and um I was introduced to him in early March because uh he had been wanting to
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do a story with us and he he knew that he was going to be coming out into the public Arena and we were the people that were going to do the prince story for
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that to happen so it was just a matter of timing of when he felt comfortable talking to me and then eventually to Ralph as well
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um but that first conversation was in early March and then it was a matter of us talking to him learning you know getting documents from him we got a lot
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of documents from him and learning who he was and what his story was that was where we started and then we tried to build the story by bringing in other
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sources um and there were more more people we talked to than actually ended up in the story um you know we got a lot of support for
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him and talked to a lot of other people and then decided this is kind of the whole thing in a nutshell or else you can add to it but then decided which you know which people were going to be
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included along with him to kind of lend support and add their own independent views on the same topic that he was talking about I mean let me say this
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that Leslie and I talk all the time every day sometimes multiple times a day on different stories
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um so we we've been talking about you know developments in in you know UAP field for for months years really
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regularly so um this just sort of grew out of that yeah and he's making claims of uh
Chapter 3: Focus of the report
3:28
3 minutes, 28 seconds
non-human craft and bodies potentially unknown uh pilot bodies he said those
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are some extreme claims with no evidence to date can you speak to then you know how you came to sourcing that
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information from him and then also potentially what it's going to look like in the future if other documents will be released because I know he did give you
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a few but are any photos or anything else going to come forward hopefully and potentially in you know in the coming
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weeks or months or maybe years I mean just to start right off we want to stay away from bodies I assume you agree Ralph because that's not something
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we talked to him about that's nothing not something we would ever put in our story um and so if he wants to make that leap with somebody else which is what he's
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done that's I'm not going to be able to comment on that and I you know it's just not part of our story I mean our focus on
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our story is on the physical craft and that's what he talked to us about and obviously there can never be documents
4:28
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released that are specifically about a specific craft or specific studies done on a craft that reveal anything about
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4 minutes, 35 seconds
locations or pictures absolutely not because they're all classified we know all that data exists and that's the kind
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of information he provided to Congress and to the icig the inspector the inspector you know the Inspector General
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for the intelligence Community um and under oath by the way he talked to them so that information is available but not to us folks who don't have
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security clearances will it ever come out we hope it will and maybe Congress will gradually authorize the release of
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some of those documents or whoever is in charge of them will authorize that but at this point they're all very very closely held and highly protected
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through these you know I want to add that the amazing thing is that we got so much um that we could put into the article
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that was not classified and you know we got Dave's statements um uh approval he got them approved by
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the pentagon's office of you know pre-publication you know release uh to clear this information with us not they weren't saying that it was true or not
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they were just saying it's okay for you to say this it's not covered by any you know secrecy uh restrictions
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um but we got everything uh that we put in that story um on the record and not classified and
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that's what we regard as as our real breakthrough that we could get this stuff out there without breaking any laws
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6 minutes
um and through the uh you know restrictions on classification which are onerous and protect all this material we
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I mean so much of this stuff is classified and we don't know about it but we got a lot of it on the record and usable did he end up seeing anything
Chapter 4: Credibility of the witness
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with his own eyes because right now I believe it's just stories that he's heard and maybe potentially hearsay but is did he see any of these documents has
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he been witnessed to anything that's craft related or you know engineering of any type of Technology I wouldn't call it hearsay first of all
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I mean he has talked extensively done mentee many interviews with very high level people from inside the programs and they've given him a lot of details
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so I I think it isn't really fair to call it hearsay means Direct Communications that he's had with very deeply buried people from the programs
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themselves and others and you know I don't know specifically what he was shown in terms of whether he's seen photographs what kind of classified
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documents he's shown he has never mentioned seeing photographs I don't think that means that he hasn't because again it's all about what is a clear his
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security clearances allow him to see and there may be certain things he doesn't even want to reference that he's seen
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we don't really know for sure the answer to that question you know the things he couldn't even tell Congress if you can imagine that he said uh you're you're
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not in effect he said to Congress you're not cleared enough you're not high up enough for me to tell you these things so um you know we we have that and that's
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on the record so um you know he has very very high security clearances
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um and uh so we don't know what he saw or touched or you know was aware of but certainly as as Leslie says it's it's
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more than hearsay because he put on the record and signed statements and testified unto oath that he um has this
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information this knowledge directly and and he participated in the programs and plus his uh his credentials are amazing
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and you know we had people vouching for him we've seen his performance reports um so he he is the real thing
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that didn't have the clearances it was staffers that didn't have the clearances yeah there's some of the info just to make that distinction so many information he provided they weren't
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clear to have access to but I think there were members of Congress that probably were cleared I don't know um yeah and he also he didn't
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participate in the programs he actually he knows lots of people that did but I mean he was participated in the UAP task force but yeah I just want to you know
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just to be 100 clear for people listening that when you said that you weren't talking about that he was part of one of these crash retrieval programs but he knows people who were uh direct
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you know direct information from them basically and he was part of the UAP task force and of course we don't know to what extent the task force what they
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have access to and aren't telling us either so and that's where he did a lot of his work when he was employed there so now there's always this big wall around
Chapter 5: Urgency of publication
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what's classified and what isn't we only know a small percentage what was it that Lou said Ralph about we only know maybe
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what is it ten percent incredibly yeah 90 of what we know is not available to the public or some huge
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number like that and sure yeah we should talk about this later on that this belongs to to people of the world I mean
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apart from any direct National Security um you know the data which is probably you know you can say well that's
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arguably a secret and ought to be classified um but as as we say in the article but the fact that these objects have been
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retrieved um and exist and all that that's not giving away any national security secrets that is information that belongs
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to uh Humanity I agree and you you're segwaying exactly where I wanted to go looking at talking about mainstream media not picking this
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up yet like slowly picking it up but in the beginning when you were looking to see that story and outside of the debrief and we appreciated that it all
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obviously came to us but we know the Washington Post didn't pass on this so let's clarify that but let's talk about
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you know why you felt the pressure that you needed to put it out right away because we see that tons of people are asking that question and try to clarify
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and and not make a conspiracy theory that you know you were pressured to do this but instead why did you feel the pressure individually not by other
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people to release this so fast I don't think we can reveal all the reasons I mean it has to do with a lot of placement of various media that's going
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to be coming after and so on but the main reason was because there were leaks that were developing even his Dave's
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name came out one of the other people in our character in our I think it was actually in an interview you did with Danny Sheehan actually and there were other I mean there were just leaks that
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we're building and building and building and our our source Dave grosh was starting to get nervous he was starting to get strange phone calls there were you know people were making weird
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comments about FBI raids and it was just like the tension was just building for him you know he'd been waiting for so
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long that um it just got to a point where we were the leaking process was we were worried about that somebody might go out and try to do a story about him
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that presented him in a negative light for instance or lie about him in the media I mean people do all kinds of horrible things so he just felt this
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urgency at a certain point we just had to get it out and and that's what he wanted as well and you may want to add to that Ralph I don't know
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this is well grounded because one of his complaints officially was that he was retaliated against illegally Under The
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Whistleblower statute he is not supposed to have been retaliated against for information he gave through proper channels but he was he suffered
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retaliation details of which we did not go into for his protection in the story but um so that was another
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Factor you know as a journalist we know that the best way to protect a source once he or she gives you you know
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important information is to put that information out there get it on the record because until that happens the sauce is really vulnerable to all kinds
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of pressure and uh and as Leslie said he was receiving all kinds of you know threats and and other things and um we
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needed to get his information out there so uh we lost the option in the internet as you know can be a Savage place there's a lot of people it's unpoliced
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we know that it's good that it's open to all these different voices it's a great strength of the internet anyone can you
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know be a journalist anyone can publish anything that's great but of course it's not always verified and we have been the
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victim victims ourselves in previous reporting of stuff that came out on the internet that undercut us that embarrassed us that you know look to
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preempt us um people have different motives uh you know Rivals colleagues so it was getting
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really untenable we we had to get this information out and we could not wait for the processes of some other organizations which were proper in their
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you know that's their protocols but we had a move ahead to protect uh as you know Dave and
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um that was a really huge Factor oh yeah are there any legal
Chapter 6: Legal protections and status
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repercussions that might happen to Dave because we know that he was allowed to go forward and speak to that and I would love to talk to you also to explain
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first why he was allowed because we're hearing different things obviously Susan Goff just sent a quote and I'll put that up too released a quote from the
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Pentagon she's the Pentagon spokeswoman to say that this is not you know not discredit him but and that's a huge
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thing we should know not discredit him but to say that arrow is you know looking to be open to talk to people and just really kind of put out a blank
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statement so let's speak a little bit about to that and then potentially what these repercussions could be because he is protected under the you know Under
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The Whistleblower protection act for him within legislation but what happens now you know will he have any legal repercussions potentially in the future
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that you could see of just I don't think so personally I think he's very well protected now now that he's getting out there in the public I mean and he's a
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great lawyer I mean he has a lawyer who previous Inspector General of the intelligence Community who was really plugged in
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um so he is represented very ably by extremely high level Council so I think again by putting his story out the
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debrief um protected him right well then it's picked up everywhere else and so his name becomes familiar and then anybody that knows
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that if they try to do something to him it's going to become news and you know the law is really in effect now he's already spoken to Congress whereas when he was retaliated against
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before he had not done that yet that was all before he spoke to Congress so it's a different world now for him and I just can't imagine that anything
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like that and he's also not in government anymore that's another big change when the things happened to him before he was still in government so
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some of the places he was working for weren't happy with the fact that he was speaking out right or that he was looking for information or whatever it was but now that he's an independent
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person I think he's also more protected in a certain way there's there's less threat on him so why was he allowed then to come
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forward and speak to this why was that like I know there's people that obviously don't want it but what was the process of this being allowed through government
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well I don't think they had a lot of choice um because it was embarrassing for them them the the government I mean the Pentagon to know that he was out there
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had this information um and it was not he wasn't speaking about classified things I mean his statements were approved on an
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unclassified level uh we have that documentation um so there really wasn't an awful lot they could do
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um and then properly so I think you know we're in a free country we have freedom of speech we're allowed to say certain things as long as we don't give away
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National Secrets classified information and again this was information that that was so basic and so Earth Earth
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shattering um you know about retrieved craft that uh there was really not nothing they
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could they could do to to stop him to there's nobody that either allows him to do anything or not allows him he's a
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private citizen I'm glad you clarified that because I know a lot of people are saying you know if the government's saying that he can and it's just it's just a weird place
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right now where you have like Susan Goff saying one thing and obviously there's other stuff going on where people are saying that he can go forward in the government and have those conversations
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I mean there's nobody controlling and we're telling him what to do he's he left government and and he was on April 7th so
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the constraints against him just like you know Lou Elizondo when we talked to him at Great length he knew what he could say and couldn't say and he put a
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lot of stuff on the record that he was allowed to say as a citizen and he withheld a lot of stuff that he didn't tell us because it was covered by you
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know classified restraints and and you know protections so um we've encountered the situation before
Chapter 7: Vetting future whistleblowers
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now the whole conversation blowers we've heard there's multiple obviously not just one right now with Dave but does this Open up The Floodgate then for
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whistleblowers to come forward but I said and I would imagine that would be a yes but when we look at whistleblowers
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there's variations of different stories that will be generally potentially come out how do we vet those stories to be true because anybody could make up a lie
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or create misinformation or forms of different disinformation that turn into misinformation how do we vet that and what is that process going to look like
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and are we doing that as people or do we have to look to the government to help us do that as well and maybe work together
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well I mean I think first of all we have to make a distinction between a whistleblower and a witness so a whistleblower is somebody who's actually accusing the government of wrongdoing
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but if you're somebody who's just coming forward and saying I I have this information but I'm not accusing the government of anything then you're you're a whisper a witness not a
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whistleblower and the term whistleblower is kind of tossed around a lot very casually um so um I think
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um you know one way you can vet them is if they whether they've spoken to Congress and or Arrow certainly
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is an important question because if you want to give someone that credibility and that you're going to willing to seriously consider them as legitimate then if they have spoken to either one
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of those bodies or both I would think that means something they're unlikely that they're going to go in there and lie right even though
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they're not it's unlikely so to me that would be one question I would always ask someone if they suddenly come forward is whether they have
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communicated with either either Arrow or congress um and other than that all you can do is ask for documentation and due to
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18 minutes, 59 seconds
in-depth interviews to try to assess the veracity of what they're saying and try to get other people to corroborate that and talk to other people who know
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that person I mean it's a long process yeah but I mean it's very important to note that we don't know all the people who come forward that's not a public
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record as a matter of fact we have a quote in our story saying that um members of Congress are prohibited from disclosing the identity uh
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identities of witnesses and whistleblowers so um we don't know all the people who've come forward and you know that's that's class of what they
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say and who they are is is also protected so so we don't know all that stuff uh if somebody comes forward to us
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and says I testified to Congress about you know UAP or whatever we go through the process of getting their you know
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vetting them getting their credentials getting their performance records um which is why by the way everything in our story was uh name sources on the
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record backed up by documentation no unnamed sources um and that I think gives our reporting strength that you don't always find you
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don't find on the internet for example because there's a a lot of anonymous stuff floating around may be true may not be true you never there's no way of
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telling but we've laid it out um in our story because that's our training as journalists uh naming people showing their background getting other
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people to vouch for them so um again we don't know all the other people who come forward we we haven't documented that
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and I think hopefully we'll see more people coming forward in the next maybe yeah again weeks months years and with their stories and hopefully then yeah we
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can we can make hopefully they're credible stories and we can have evidence you know to back those as well and move forward in mainstream media picks it up
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has other sorry say it again no I was just saying absolutely and I think I think that should happen I think Dave's just gonna be starting the bowl rolling
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and hopefully others will be encouraged to come forward absolutely and he's given strength to other people and one and and I think he lit a fire under
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Congress because he's basically said Congress you have been lied to you have not been told the truth and here is the truth
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um we have that in us in our story uh that he has basically told Congress um that they have not had access to the
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21 minutes, 14 seconds
information that they legally deserve to have about UAP so maybe now little by little that you know this fire will be
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lit other people will be emboldened to come forward and that I would guess that would be the case we look at other potential
Chapter 8: Comparison to Bob Lazar
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whistleblowers from the past in the early 80s and we'll look at Bob Lazar obviously as being one and this might be a a direct question and kind of direct
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21 minutes, 38 seconds
question but is is is Dave the new bobbles are would he be considered that because right now that's kind of what
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people have saying or hearing they're similar things to what he's saying exactly and and does this cooperate Bob
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lazar's story I would say no to both of those questions but I mean because you know Dave has Dave has spoken to Congress for
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provided 11 hours of oral testimony I don't think Bob Lazar has done that uh Dave has you know he's filed a complaint with the icig which was which was ruled
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in his favor urgent and what is it credible and urgent I mean it's just another level I mean I'm not dissing Bob Lazar at all but I don't
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think he has the kind of credential and open you know openly engaging with the government providing documents you know
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lots of people know him um it's just a whole different level of kind of activity and I don't think what they're saying really is similar either
22:34
22 minutes, 34 seconds
I mean he's not talking about one specific crashed object in a hangar in one location he's it's a much broader
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22 minutes, 42 seconds
expose than that but you know that would be an interesting question to ask David how he sees himself in relation to Bob Lazar but I don't I don't see him I'm on
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22 minutes, 50 seconds
the same in the same universe really I don't know I mean first of all bubbles though said he put his hands on Craft right I mean
22:58
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he actually physically saw and and interacted with craft and um um and and Dave is not saying that
23:07
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but also um Dave came from it came from very very high level uh into you know intelligence
23:14
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agencies which we documented uh he worked for different agencies he worked with the UAP task force he worked with the you know
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the national what is it Geographic space intelligence yeah the NGA National
23:31
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Geography geospatial intelligence or the alphabet soup of agencies but again we documented
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his his service record plus he you know a decorated War veteran in Afghanistan and all that so um you know we choose to to feature the
23:48
23 minutes, 48 seconds
stories of people who we can document fully that they not only have very important information uh but whose
23:56
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bonafide's we can you know document uh really very compellingly and get other people to vouch for them so I'm not
24:03
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saying that you know who we who we didn't feature because they didn't measure up to that but Dave does measure up to that and Lou Elizondo did measure
24:11
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up to that when we featured him in the New York Times so these are the people you know we chew we hear lots of stories all the time as I said Leslie and I talk
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all the time about um you know we're going to go in our reporting but we tend to you know try to put our our efforts on those cases where
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we are you know just fully able to document their the service histories and their information and I think an interesting question
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would be whether Bob Lazar is going to go provide testimony to arrows say I mean if he
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why wouldn't he do that I've asked the same question uh on some of my podcasts as well as Bob Lazar
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going to do that and I I hope he does I really do and we'll see I think that shows his level of credibility if he
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decides to go on the record and testify so I I think you're right yeah but I can't I'm not second guessing him I mean
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if he doesn't I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that I'm sure he but you know he has all kinds of reasons for what he does I'm not trying to draw judgment everybody
25:12
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yeah make the wrong call on this and it's obviously extremely difficult to come forward Dave you know uh uh really
25:20
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risked a lot to do that to come forward on the record uh so not everybody's willing to do that and we're not judging
25:27
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those who don't but we we certainly uh like to you know give Credence and attention to those who do
Chapter 9: Government awareness
25:36
25 minutes, 36 seconds
Avril Haynes is our national is the national um director of intelligence so you might know this or not but I believe it was
25:44
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last year a year before maybe even two years ago she did a talk called our future in space with uh theoretical physicist Avi Loeb she did it with some
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25 minutes, 52 seconds
theologians as well and it also I believe I forget who else was there oh um Bill Nelson was there NASA administrator so right there there was
26:01
26 minutes, 1 second
tons of people in the National Cathedral Church in Washington speaking about the the the concept of what this is going to
26:09
26 minutes, 9 seconds
look like from a theologian perspective and through like a science perspective do you think that Avril Haynes and it says I believe in the article that she
26:17
26 minutes, 17 seconds
was informed do you think that she's actually and I know that this is all just speculation and just a question that you're not 100 potentially sure but
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26 minutes, 25 seconds
do you think she knew of this way in advance and was hosting these types of conferences that really on YouTube was only watched about 4 000 people when I
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26 minutes, 33 seconds
watched it it wasn't nationally broadcast which I thought was interesting but it had a conversation a really deep conversation
26:40
26 minutes, 40 seconds
um about the Theology of this do you think that Avril Haynes potentially might have known way more in doing these types of conferences is generally doing
26:49
26 minutes, 49 seconds
a slow trickle of this topic and looking at the original perspective I hear this
26:55
26 minutes, 55 seconds
a lot as a lifelong journalist and New York Times Reporter I do not really believe in these conspiracies that this
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27 minutes, 3 seconds
was all thought out in advance that this is you know a plot to trickle out the information I mean we obviously don't know what Avril Haynes knew
27:12
27 minutes, 12 seconds
um or didn't know but but I tend not to believe that you know the people who who you know assert that our story was
27:19
27 minutes, 19 seconds
planted or that you know people leaked this to us at a particular time for a particular effect I know that's not true because I know how our stories
27:28
27 minutes, 28 seconds
um you know originate through hard reporting digging sometimes chance so I would tend not to believe that she had
27:35
27 minutes, 35 seconds
some kind of master plan to you know plant the seeds at this you know conference with Bill Nelson Etc I also want to say by the way it's great that
27:43
27 minutes, 43 seconds
NASA is finally in this discussion because for a long time they were missing an action but we can take that up later but so to answer your question
27:51
27 minutes, 51 seconds
directly I don't know how Leslie feels about this but I'll tell you I do not believe that these things are um you know sort of hand fed to to
27:59
27 minutes, 59 seconds
reporters or plotted along in advance because we just don't know how would she know that Dave grush was gonna you know
28:07
28 minutes, 7 seconds
decide to come forward uh you know who who knew that um anyway he didn't know it he didn't know himself until he decided to do it
28:15
28 minutes, 15 seconds
so um anyway that's that's my take on it maybe Leslie has a different take but no I mean I can't I can't comment because it's all speculation I agree with you
28:23
28 minutes, 23 seconds
Ralph but um we do know that that she did receive or her office received a copy of the classified version of the complaint
28:31
28 minutes, 31 seconds
the the icig complaint that he filed in May of 2022 so she she did receive that and of course the classified version has
28:40
28 minutes, 40 seconds
all the information that he provided similar to what he provided to Congress so for whatever that's worth that was after
28:47
28 minutes, 47 seconds
that conference yeah but just in general yeah I guess you're right but just to speculate in general just to add that we know she has
28:55
28 minutes, 55 seconds
she did get a copy of that right yeah so let's even talk about the timeline I'd be curious to know why because we look at the legislation and we know that the
Chapter 10: The whistleblower timeline
29:04
29 minutes, 4 seconds
legislation has a 72-hour activation mode but then it's informed to different people within the different agencies so I'm curious because we don't really know
29:13
29 minutes, 13 seconds
what propels that so I'd be curious to see what that timeline looked like if you can share it with me of when he decided to then testify and go on the
29:21
29 minutes, 21 seconds
record and under oath and then where we ended up now being informing different people within Senate and Intel committees how long was that uh process
29:30
29 minutes, 30 seconds
I think it was I mean I might not have it's all in the story I might not have it exactly in my brain but as I recall it was in 2021 that he first went to the
29:39
29 minutes, 39 seconds
IG for the dod and filed a complaint there um and that was it wasn't that complete
29:46
29 minutes, 46 seconds
complaint quote was about illegal activity on the part of the U.S government because uh these programs have been concealed so he basically went
29:55
29 minutes, 55 seconds
to file that they have they have these programs and they've been hiding the information from the government and that's illegal and after he did that
30:03
30 minutes, 3 seconds
that's when he started to get these reprisals happening that somehow that information leaked and he doesn't know how that happened and then so over the
30:11
30 minutes, 11 seconds
next year he was just constantly dealing with horrible things that we're not going to talk about because the investigation is ongoing but it really
30:17
30 minutes, 17 seconds
really bad stuff and so then um in 20 May of 2022 he filed a reprisal with the
30:24
30 minutes, 24 seconds
icig or a complaint I'm sorry which dealt with the reprisals that he had received the previous year as well as
30:32
30 minutes, 32 seconds
the information that he had so there were two components of what he was providing one was just the information about the programs and the crash
30:39
30 minutes, 39 seconds
retrievals and the second was the information about the reprisals that have been taken against him and so that was the second complaint so that's sort of so that was like May of
30:47
30 minutes, 47 seconds
22. so that was like a year ago that he filed that um and then yeah then he started talking
30:54
30 minutes, 54 seconds
a lot to Congress after that second um May 22nd May 2022 complaint was filed then the the copies of the classified
31:03
31 minutes, 3 seconds
version were sent around they were sent to both the intelligence committees both House and Senate and then he started having these closed-door meetings with
31:10
31 minutes, 10 seconds
the staffers and members of Congress and then that continued to do that over the next year that's how I understand the timeline again if I got anything wrong
31:19
31 minutes, 19 seconds
it is in the story I think that's exactly right Leslie and of course we don't know all the things he told Congress behind closed doors because that's all classified so for the people
31:28
31 minutes, 28 seconds
who say well he hasn't provided anything you know we don't know what he we don't know what he provided that's right it's classified but that doesn't mean that
31:36
31 minutes, 36 seconds
it's not important oh for sure really important it's just that we don't get to see it yeah you know I know there was a lot of it I mean there were hundreds of
31:45
31 minutes, 45 seconds
pages of of materiality you know information that he provided a lot of information do you know how we go about
Chapter 11: Transparency and secrecy
31:52
31 minutes, 52 seconds
then since this has come forward how do unclassify classify documents like that like it obviously the government will it
31:59
31 minutes, 59 seconds
will take some time for that to happen but how is that even pushed to then obviously come forward is it just because of the pressure that's been put on with obviously this story and the
32:08
32 minutes, 8 seconds
amount of pressure that they're going to have to deal with or is it something that they're just going to say we're probably not going to do this and not unclassify any information that's a good
32:16
32 minutes, 16 seconds
question I mean Congress can can obviously subpoena information the Congress can obtain information uh I guess to some extent they they might
32:24
32 minutes, 24 seconds
influence the declassification I I'm not familiar with the you know all the ins and outs of that process who would have to do that but certainly we hope that
32:33
32 minutes, 33 seconds
our story um will embolden members of Congress to do what they're elected to do which is find out on behalf of the American
32:41
32 minutes, 41 seconds
people what's going on and to open doors that are close to them I mean you know one of Dave's claims and complaints is
32:50
32 minutes, 50 seconds
that Congress has not was illegally uh kept in the dark uh by by the gun by the you know the executive branch by the
32:58
32 minutes, 58 seconds
Pentagon um so now maybe members of Congress will you know assert their constitutional rights to be informed about these things
33:06
33 minutes, 6 seconds
this is a money of course that that is involved here um it belongs to the American taxpayer
33:13
33 minutes, 13 seconds
so if Congress now demands that this some of this information be opened up um that will probably go a long way
33:21
33 minutes, 21 seconds
oh yeah and multiple people would be going to jail if they release classful information if they were this classified information
33:29
33 minutes, 29 seconds
yes that's why they can't or if they withheld information illegally because that's a crime I mean uh Congress is entitled to certain information which is
33:37
33 minutes, 37 seconds
Dave's point and to withhold that information from Congress um that is a crime yeah and they're
33:44
33 minutes, 44 seconds
saying over 90 years though that this has been held against the American people and not knowing you know that's a
33:51
33 minutes, 51 seconds
lot of people and you know the government has played a very sordid role here we have to say that in concealing the truth of the
34:00
34 minutes
American people I'm not talking about classified information I'm talking about basic facts they've made they've had a government policy through various
34:07
34 minutes, 7 seconds
administrations going back to World War II and earlier to ridicule this phenomenon to stigmatize it
34:15
34 minutes, 15 seconds
um to you know pressure the media not to run these stories and basically
34:22
34 minutes, 22 seconds
it put a cloud over the entire field which we still feel today people are reluctant to come forward um and that's only because the
34:30
34 minutes, 30 seconds
government was afraid to say that we don't know what this phenomenon is uh we can't protect the American people from something we don't know uh you know what
34:38
34 minutes, 38 seconds
it is um if they'd only said that um it would have probably encourage people to come forward long before this
34:45
34 minutes, 45 seconds
so there's been a long history of disinformation misinformation and and really which is I'm not the first one to
34:53
34 minutes, 53 seconds
say this this is but it's um it's a very sad history and we're suffering the consequences of it today
Chapter 12: Addressing disinformation
35:01
35 minutes, 1 second
any possible way that this could be a disinformation campaign you know a recruited Dave into a disinformation
35:09
35 minutes, 9 seconds
campaign and gotten all the people I call Nell the colonel who vouched for him and Jonathan gray the other source
35:17
35 minutes, 17 seconds
we have in the story who vouch for him you'd have to get all these people together this is what I was saying before about conspiracy theories which I don't believe if my career as a reporter
35:26
35 minutes, 26 seconds
you'd have to get so many people to agree on a story and a you know a fake story and disinformation it's just
35:33
35 minutes, 33 seconds
ludicrous I mean you know anything is possible could you say is it no it's not impossible it's just extremely unlikely
35:42
35 minutes, 42 seconds
because of the way we Trace The Bona fides of all these people yeah too many people know Dave grush to
35:49
35 minutes, 49 seconds
for that to be the case that's for sure it's too highly respected within the intelligence community and we've seen a lot of people come
35:57
35 minutes, 57 seconds
forward even after this is uh the story went live that people have come forward and have said you know how about him and said many many positive things about him
36:06
36 minutes, 6 seconds
and his ethics has anybody in congress or government um or related to government um not even just obviously media would
36:13
36 minutes, 13 seconds
reach out to you but anybody that's former government or in government right now has reached out to you in the past 24 hours about this story
36:20
36 minutes, 20 seconds
we don't talk about that that's fair enough
36:27
36 minutes, 27 seconds
I mean we talk to people all the time uh you know who we talk to and for what I mean that's not something we you know we feel comfortable discussing who we've
36:36
36 minutes, 36 seconds
talked to and you know about one that's fair can I ask then what is a dopsa review because that has been mentioned and I just like to clarify it for people who myself and others might not be
Chapter 13: The DOPSA review process
36:44
36 minutes, 44 seconds
familiar with that term or acronym okay that's the uh defense office of pre-publication and Security review
36:53
36 minutes, 53 seconds
um and they decide whether somebody who had been privy to classified information can can talk about the subject to what
37:02
37 minutes, 2 seconds
extent that person can you know reveal details about it um and Dave submitted um the fact that he wanted to give us
37:10
37 minutes, 10 seconds
information talk to us about his um his testimony to Congress and to the Pentagon
37:18
37 minutes, 18 seconds
um and quite properly cleared it with that office beforehand and said I plan to say this and this and this to the reporters Leslie Kane and Ralph
37:27
37 minutes, 27 seconds
Blumenthal they don't rule on the truth and falsity of that they just say does this violate any security uh you know
37:36
37 minutes, 36 seconds
guidelines and they said in in documents that we obtained um no you you can say this this and this
37:44
37 minutes, 44 seconds
and it laid out exactly what he wanted to say and what they said he could say so um I think that strengthened our story
37:52
37 minutes, 52 seconds
in that we can report that um the the government the Pentagon knew what he was telling us and did not
38:01
38 minutes, 1 second
object on security grounds so I think that's important it adds a level of verification that we were very careful to get because again it confirms that we
38:11
38 minutes, 11 seconds
weren't dealing in classified information and that the information that we were reporting had been cleared
38:18
38 minutes, 18 seconds
uh just for this kind of publication in the debrief um with with the government so we felt
38:26
38 minutes, 26 seconds
another level of confidence and Security in in the reliability of our information I think it gave us a a very strong
38:34
38 minutes, 34 seconds
feeling of confidence that what we were reporting he was saying was at least true and Lou Elizondo did something
38:41
38 minutes, 41 seconds
similar to this I believe with his book too just so people yeah so that he could go forward and release his book hopefully in the next hopefully next year or maybe end of this year we'll see
38:50
38 minutes, 50 seconds
and the skin workers same thing I mean anybody who's worked within the intelligence world and then wants to write a book they all have to get it
38:57
38 minutes, 57 seconds
reviewed to make sure there's nothing in there that that is violating uh classification rules so skin workers I remember they were tied up for quite a
39:05
39 minutes, 5 seconds
while going through this review process so I'm not surprised yeah it might be a different office that handles books as
39:12
39 minutes, 12 seconds
opposed to Shorter things I don't know but it's the same kind of process yeah you know and I think that added to the wow fact of our story because people
39:21
39 minutes, 21 seconds
were saying you know wow they're the the government is letting this guy say this you know wow they're letting him say so
39:28
39 minutes, 28 seconds
um you know it sounds like I guess maybe a normal reader's reaction might be oh nobody would allow him to say this so
39:35
39 minutes, 35 seconds
how could he say this um and they let him say it you know they didn't endorse it but they said it doesn't violate any
39:43
39 minutes, 43 seconds
um you know secrecy statutes so uh again we were very pleased to have that level of
39:50
39 minutes, 50 seconds
um you know disclosure in our in our piece and uh I think it added to the power of the story that came out where
Chapter 14: Looking toward the future
39:57
39 minutes, 57 seconds
do we go next now with this story you know where does the government have to go for uh for us to obviously have Marvel use the word disclosure you know
40:05
40 minutes, 5 seconds
such a in the the UFO community and then where do the people go next with learning all this information because it
40:12
40 minutes, 12 seconds
really is if this is the first article you ever read about this topic you're going to go through a massive paradigm shift and it could change everything
40:20
40 minutes, 20 seconds
that you and everything how you see the world and and everything that you believe in yeah so I guess where we go next is what
40:27
40 minutes, 27 seconds
we hope where we hope we go next because we can't predict is that others will come forward like Dave that the the case
40:35
40 minutes, 35 seconds
for the reality of Crash retrievals and then these Legacy programs will be in you know will become stronger
40:42
40 minutes, 42 seconds
and as a result there will be more hearings for instance that perhaps Dave and others will be called to an open Hearing in Congress and that there may
40:50
40 minutes, 50 seconds
be as we talked about uh declassification of some documentation about this uh and just greater transparency then it's just going to be
40:58
40 minutes, 58 seconds
a gradual process it's going to unfold and um you know that's best case scenario uh of course we can't predict I mean worst case scenario is that
41:07
41 minutes, 7 seconds
everything just gets shut down uh and there's some way that it's you know that these Witnesses are are prevented from coming forward and
41:15
41 minutes, 15 seconds
there's you know there I mean there are forces out there that don't want this to happen and have a lot of power to be do harm to people you know
41:23
41 minutes, 23 seconds
but I like to put forward the positive scenario and say this is what should happen and and is probably will happen
41:30
41 minutes, 30 seconds
that's how I see it sorry you know I want to just add to that absolutely right that uh you have to think of how far we've come and just in the few years
41:38
41 minutes, 38 seconds
since you know we broke the story in the New York Times um now the government has officially said that these objects are real they physically exist they're not
41:46
41 minutes, 46 seconds
hallucinations they're not you know fly specs on the windshield of you know fighter craft these are true enigmas
41:55
41 minutes, 55 seconds
um they can't be explained by anything we've uh you know understood so far they operate not only in the air apparently but underwater because they change the
42:04
42 minutes, 4 seconds
name of the office to the old domain you know anomaly office so so these things
42:11
42 minutes, 11 seconds
are operating in a variety of media air water and but they're real they're
42:18
42 minutes, 18 seconds
they're not figments of imagination they're not through hallucinations they're not Fabrications they're not hoaxes they are something that cannot be
42:25
42 minutes, 25 seconds
explained by our current understanding um so and that's only within the last few years because you know before that
42:32
42 minutes, 32 seconds
the government was saying well at least you know people are faking these reports or they're demented or they're mentally ill and that was the stigma oh well now
42:41
42 minutes, 41 seconds
we've gone beyond that the government has officially said you know in in the reports it's put out that these objects are real we can't explain them some we
42:49
42 minutes, 49 seconds
can explain a lot we can't explain or can be explained finally by natural phenomena but a lot we can't
42:57
42 minutes, 57 seconds
um and and that's how far we've come and I think that it's it's nice to look at the positive side and say well we
43:04
43 minutes, 4 seconds
haven't figured it all out we haven't gotten all the answers by a long shot but at least we're not back into the days when the government was putting out this and getting away with it putting
43:13
43 minutes, 13 seconds
out this disinformation and misinformation 100 and ruin the right step forward I think thank you so much both of you
43:21
43 minutes, 21 seconds
lesson Roth to joining me on rebelliously Curious today and I can't wait to see what else happens with this article so again thank you for joining