A Geek History of Time - Episode 152 - X Files are Crazy, Like a Fox Part I

Episode Date: April 2, 2022

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, Muckin' Merchant. Who gives a fuck? Oh, Muckin' which is a trickle, you know, baby. You know what it's called. Well, you know, uh, you really like it here. Uh, it's kind of nice and uh, it's called as Buckleman.

So, yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle. I'm a peasant boy who grabs sword out of a stone. Yeah. I'm able to open people up. You will, yeah. Anytime I hit them with it, right? Yeah. So my cleave landing will make me a cavalier.

Good day, Spree. If sysclothed it was empty headed, plebeum trash, it trash is really good and gruey. Because cannibalism and murder, we'll back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the rat heads. And it's totally free. A thorough intent doesn't exist.

Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing the rat heads. But it just... This is a geek history of time. There we connect to Nurtory to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock, I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California with a side of English. And this week, I finally have the opportunity to do some cooking on the grill that I've

talked about multiple times. I actually got to cook steaks on a grill for the first time in going on for years. And the experience was transcendent, which I suppose labels me as really quite the carnivore, but there you go. It was amazing. It was everything. I was hoping it would be more. The adventure of home ownership with all of its downsides does have its perks, because I can do that again. So that's what I've got going on. Who are you? And what's going on in your life? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a Latin and drama teacher up here in Northern California. And my thing for this week is it's funny every time I'm like, okay,

got something good to tell. And then you have you hit me with something like out of left field. And I'm like, I'm listening intently to that. And it completely leaves my head. So I had so many questions for you, none of which I was interested enough to hear the answers for. But I was interested in asking the question for. So I suppose that makes sense. Kind of.

Yeah, I've hit my students with that before. I've always responded to them with, have you ever asked a question but realized halfway through the answer that you don't care? And, Oh, yeah. Yeah, so many times.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, mean, the the the the peaches have blossomed. I've got nice beautiful peach blossoms all over my my trees. And that's really nice. That is. We had the harvest. Oh, yeah, yeah, last last week.

And here's what I found out. There is some sort of scavenger creature that has made it. So every time I forget to go get them that night, it doesn't matter because it's feeding some local fauna. However, one of them was scared and dropped a donut on my neighbor's side of the fence. My neighbor texted me, he says, Hey, man, I know that your your kids probably meant well, but please don't throw chocolate donuts over to our dog because it's bad for our dog. And he's explaining to me why chocolate is bad for a dog.

And like, pardon me, he's like, bitch, I know that chocolate is bad for a dog. You do not need to lecture me on this shit. But I was like, oh, that wasn't my kids. That was some sort of scavenger. And so then I had just explained to him that we plant donuts and like it just doesn't explain it well. So no Translate I think only this will be the last year it happens. My daughter is on to me. She's a hundred percent on to me. Oh, yeah Oh, yeah, yeah, it's okay. Yeah, so there will be a discussion After next week as to the fact that I've been lying to them the whole

time. Okay. Yeah. So okay. So if I have satin clothes, you have a donut harvest. I would still say that morally and ethically, the donut harvest is less harmful for the children than Santa Claus because the donuts go into the ground and come up from the ground regardless of my children's behavior. And I don't have, you know, the basil will tell on you and be a little snitch bitch. Okay. All right.

So I want to make a very clear here. Sure. That I'm 100% in in in favor of snitches snitches get stitches. And we ain't we ain't inviting no fake creature into this house. No, no, I guess I can't come over for barbecue. All right, cool. That's fine. No, that's good. Oh, are we telling on ourself now? Finally, this has been obvious for a long time. It's cleared. Yeah, well, you know, but but having you actually confessed like that was really a thing. But yeah, no, I'm not inviting no god damn

elf in a house. Like that's that's a back and forth with my with my wife because she keeps in. Well, you know, eventually he's gonna hear about it from other kids at school and then we're gonna have to be like, and I will and I've told her and I will simply said him down and I will say, you do not invite supernatural beings into your home life. Right. Yeah. That's no, no, no, no. There were, there were the angels who sided with God. There were the angels who sided with Lucifer. And then there were the third ones who didn't pick a side. And we're not letting any of those assholes into our house. Like that just ain't happening like we're sure. Sure.

So. Very cool. Yeah. So yeah, we're that's that that'll be the news for for this week, because I don't forgot as soon as you started mentioning your states. Okay. Yeah. Well, that makes sense. So speaking of of credulity. Ah, yes. And your daughter being a skeptic. Uh-huh. I want to know, do you want to believe? You know, I've thought about that while I think if I could snap my fingers and make it so that I could believe without all of the knowing doubt that I have. Okay, so like if I could just force gum myself. Okay, then I think which totally like I'm telling on myself all night tonight.

Like basically I kind of just admitted that I think faith is is for the dumb. But I don't actually think that I might instinctively think that, but I don't my practice think that. Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. So, you know, there's certain prejudices. If you see a clown walking down the street, you're going to cross the street. But, you know, and other people won't have that aversion. So like if I could believe fully and want and and and and and not and and find a way to be okay with any questions that are asked have that like that, you know, the non understanding. I think I'd be a much happier person. Okay, I can see that. Yeah, but I'm curious as to to where this is gonna go. Okay. Well, the reason I asked that question is because you mentioned, of course,

your daughter being a skeptic. I'm not gonna say becoming a skeptic. She's growing into a greater level of skepticism. She is a very logical individual and a thinky one which is gonna be dangerous for you. Going forward. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, But the reason I ask that specific question and I'm not even really even necessarily talking about religious faith. Oh, okay. But that was one of the taglines from a very well-known TV series that I'm going to be talking about tonight. Me and the Nation.

Oh nice, nice. Well played. No. I'm talking about the X files. Oh yeah. And one of the one of the defining characteristics of the dynamic duo in that show was that Fox Malder who hated his first name and even forced his mother to call him just Malder. He was utterly credulous. He believed all of it, if aliens then ghosts. Like he was the king of wool. He was also an Oxford educated scholar

and brilliantly intelligent, had an incredibly creative mind. And we're not doing another article in Doyle episode. Are we not really? Oh, okay, okay. But when we get into actually talking about the series, we'll explain why he had actually good reason for being credulous. And then his partner was Dana Scully,

who had an MD, she was a doctor, and was thoroughly skeptical and thoroughly rational. And so part of the tension of the show was them being thrown into whatever bat shit crazy case they faced. And him always immediately leaping to well with a couple of notable exceptions, leaping to aliens, bigfoot. You know, he at one point turned to a curly and photographer for evidence in a case, you know, all that kind of stuff.

You know, I gotta say a phenomena. It so far sounds like an inversion of Sherlock Holmes. There's an element of that. And I don't think you could get the X files as it was without Sherlock Holmes. Right. But the point was not, the emphasis was entirely different.

Any show that has really leaned on Sherlock Holmes or has been an interpretation of Sherlock Holmes has leaned on, oh, hey, look at this brilliant individual. And like, you know, how amazing is this guy? Or, hey, let's check out how fucked up this guy is. Right. You know, and this story or, hey, let's check out how fucked up this guy is. Right. You know, and in this story was less about molder and more about molder's quest. Okay.

So if that makes sense, it does. It sounds like you've got a starting template. And then you immediately say, well, what if we gave you the negative version of that, like old film negatives? Because now you have the doctor who is the more brainy one and the other one who is willing to believe things as they see them. Yes. Yes. He's the one who's more heart than head. Right. And she's the coldly rational one, which Chris Carter, the creator of the series, specifically did

as an inversion. He wanted to have the male character be the squishy psychic empathic. Right. That goes against tight. Absolutely. Yeah, because it goes against tight. That was his goal. Okay.

So now the thing is, the X-Files is very much a product of the 90s in a host of ways. And I kind of want to get into, I want to talk about the X-Files. And so I opened with that question because I want to believe was a tagline, because Mulder had a poster up in his office in the basement of the FBI. tagline, because Mulder had a had a poster up in his office in the basement of the FBI. There was there was an image from I don't remember which UFO story with with the words I want to believe at the bottom at the bottom of the poster in big white block lettering. I see now I've never seen more than 15 minutes of an episode ever. And I think I've seen yeah I think I've seen, now I've never seen more than 15 minutes of an episode ever. And I think I've seen, yeah, I think I've seen maybe two or three different episodes is 15 minutes.

Like, there was one where he, I think it might have been the very first one where he is guiding an investigation on something having to do with an escalator. And he believes that it is the Huda Magic thingy. And there's a guy that questions him and says, you know, you really believe in this. He's like, that's changed the investigation. That is, that is an episode out of the first series or the first season. Okay. Toward the end of the first season, toons, it's one of my favorite. Okay. It's actually the second appearance of that monster of the week. Okay. And well, you know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers. the tombs, the character tombs is a mutant who is also a serial killer who will periodically kill a number of people.

And devour their livers, which is one of the clues that leads Mulder to, in his research, figure out that this guy is, is amutant is that he will, he will kill and want to say it's five people. The victims all have their livers removed and then the killer disappears for 30 years at a time. Wow, okay. And he's able to, and he's able to get into places that make it seem impossible for a human to have gotten to these people. Yeah, there's something about getting out of that.

Because he's able to stretch himself out. Oh, okay. And they do some really remarkable 90s-ero special effects showing him stretching himself to do. Sure. Sure. And there's actually a great moment in the first half of the two-parter. And there's actually a great moment in the first half of the two partner. The reason the reason they the the motor and scully initially get called in to deal with with tomes before they know it's him

is there's a murder case that one of scully's friends from the FBI Academy wanted to get her input on. And because Mulder is her partner, he gets pulled in. Okay. input on. And because Mulder is her partner, he gets pulled in. And Mulder is, you know, scoping the scene out and helping out with the investigation, looking at stuff. And one of the other FBI agents turns to Mulder and goes, Hey, Mulder, is this one of those cases for your little green men? And without batting an eyelash and totally deadpan molder looks looks at me right in the eye and says gray. Oh, and the guy and the guy blanks and says what and molder just again, totally straight faces reticulants are gray. They're not little green men,

they're little gray men. Right. And he goes into any launches into a minute long explanation of this is why you're wrong and this is why you suck. And just in the other guy is just like confronted by too much batshit crazy walks away. Right. And Sveli kind of looks at me and blinks at him and he says sometimes the millstone of humiliation around my neck is worth it just to mess with their heads. Okay. And that's one of the best lines out of the entire series. So there's another episode that I saw part of and I saw like a non consecutive 15 minutes, but basically there's a guy who's a psychic who tells scully that he sees in the future that they'll be in bed and she'll be holding his hand.

And she says, there's no way that'll actually ever happen. And then I went away and did whatever the fuck. And then I came back toward the end. I think I was living with some other people like I was between houses. And so, you know, you get out on the 25th and the new lease starts on the first. So what do you do for six days?

Yeah. And very nice people, the lip scopes, by the way, from the public creek, very of the Wallet Creek lip scopes. But a really kind folk turned over their house to me, a couple different times actually, before I came to live with producer George. I was actually having them just for a few days, but it was an important few days. But anyway, and then later on, he's taken pills or something and she sits down on the bed where he's dying or where he's dead and she goes to grab the pills from his hand and she's holding his hand.

And she has that moment of realization. I think so or I did at least or I don't. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I don't, I don't remember. They were pushing a car and I think he was grimacing and somebody thought he thought it was funny and it was he saw a corpse underneath the mud and I never got into the show. I don't know why. I'm well. yeah, it could have been the night that it was on. And I was always working. Yeah, yeah, so the show leans really heavily on UFO mythology, the myth arc of the series is focused mainly on UFO mythology

and conspiracy and a fictional conspiracy theory based on the conspiracy theories, or actually it's a fictional conspiracy, it's not just a theory. In the show it's really there. And it's kind of built around ideas out of multiple different conspiracy theories that have surrounded UFO lore. And so to really talk about what the show was and what the show meant and what it is that I think the show reflects about us as a nation and about you know the dominant American culture in the 90s, we've got to go back to talking about the Cold War. Okay.

So that sounds good. All right. So the war ended World War II. I should say, the war, I say that like I'm a Brit. World War II, the Great War, the Second Great War, ended in 1945, of course. And at the end of that, the entire global balance of power had undergone a really radical shift, and it wasn't even like necessarily where the balance, who was powerful. What was important was, before World War I, the power balance in the world had been multipolar. There had been multiple empires. Right. Right. After World War I, it had

been kind of a largely unipolar with the British Empire really being, you know, the main, you know, big, big name on the block. And then after the war, the British Empire disintegrated. As you say, all the empires were kind of on the lane. Yeah. And the United States wasn't accepting that it was the only dog with any strength, like it kind of refused to. Yeah, there was there was a real hesitant to accept that, hey, you know, by the way, we're the global hedgehog on now. And then after after World War II, the British Empire disintegrated and now all of a sudden,

the balance of power has shifted really for the first time anybody can really point to clearly as being a bipolar one. Yeah, there was there was the United States on one side, which was heavily individualistic society. Okay, heavily individualist, heavily, heavily, heavily, heavily capitalized society. And the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the other, which was heavily collectivist. Yes. Okay. And also authoritarian, but you know. I mean, so previous to World War I,

you did essentially have Britain and Germany as the acknowledged to biggest. But there was enough of a second tier that were still regional powers in the region that Britain and Germany were, that they couldn't just be, whereas here you have two different hemispheres. Well, yeah. And that's one of the, I think the geography of that really matters because in World War, prior to World War I, I mean, it really was Britain and Germany jockeying for position, you know, Britain was the whole guard, Germany was nipping at their heels and showing dominance

on the continent. And, you know, it wasn't as stark and clear as it was after World War II, but you did have those top two, and then the others were a second tier, but they were much closer, like the amplitude was much smaller. Yeah, and I think what's important is after World War II, there really wasn't a second tier, like in terms of dying empires, not fading, dying,

crippled and fee dying empires, not fading, dying, crippled and and and and people empires. You know, nobody was going to look at Diggoles France and be like, oh yeah, they're a global power. No. Right. Like no. As as much as the Black feet, like wanted to remain part of a French empire. No, I'm sorry. Right. It just don't. It isn't happening. And as much as Churchill believed that the disintegration of the British Empire was going to be, you know, the death Nell of Western civilization, even he couldn't keep it alive. Right. You know. And so we have these two powers who immediately go about demonizing one another. Right.

And to be fair, both sides, from their own point of view, kind of had reason to, you know, firstly, literally everybody has tried to conquer Russia at some point in history. Right. Like literally, everybody has tried to invade Russia at some point in history. And at the time of the Russian Civil War, at the end of just after World War One, Western powers had actively worked to undo the Soviet to, you know, install America's submarines over. Yes. Like, yeah, everybody was trying to stop it. And then on top of that, like during World War II, they got invaded again.

And it was their blood and bodies that brought the Wehrmacht to a halt. Like it was the Soviet Union in China that won the war in both theaters. Everyone else sped it along, but it was their sacrifices. Oh yeah. And so the Russians certainly had had reason or the Soviets,

certainly had reason to be paranoid at the time. Mm-hmm. Meanwhile, on the other side, Stalin was a rat bastard. Yes. Like, there's no sure-coding in fact that Stalin was a really shitty person. Really shitty individual. Yeah. The Soviet state had gone hardcore totalitarian under under, under went, starting underletting and then, and then

under Stalin, it became, you know, a nightmare. Oh, quite so, yes. And, and both sides had, or quickly got a hold of nuclear weapons. So, Q global paranoia. Right. And, and, you know, on the other side, you know, one of the, one of the parts of the great migration that doesn't get mentioned enough is, is the fleeing of black Americans to the Soviet Union, where they were a courted B respected and and see like integrated as a vital part of the agricultural communities. Like the United States also had like not as totalitarian, but certainly was eating its children. Yeah, well, I'm not going to argue that, you know, I'm not going to try to make the ass and I argument that that racism was not a self-destructive trait in, you know, the United States from, you know, day one. Right. And I will say that certainly there were a significant number of African Americans who were encouraged to go to the USSR with the promise of an anti-racist civilization or a culture and who had technical knowledge and understanding

that the Soviets needed what I'm going to slightly quibble with is that there are stories from those people's children in the Soviet Union that they did face racism from their neighbors when they got there. Sure, sure. Yeah, I'm not saying it was a post-racial utopia by any stretch, but it was attractive enough to get the fuck out. No, yeah.

And then, and that's just the domestic side, never mind the legal domestic side of, no, your kids have to go to this other school. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. You know, and no, you can't fuck this person. And, and, and, and, and, and then on top of that, Guatemala, I ran. Like, there was an exporting of fascism.

What is, okay, you're, you're getting ahead of me. Okay. You're getting ahead of me here. That's, that's part of my thesis. Oh, okay. Let me back that up. All right. So so at this point, I'm just setting the stage for why those foreign policy decisions were being made. Mm hmm. Yes, yes. By the people in the CIA in the White House. Yeah. And I haven't

gotten here yet, because I first I need to talk about popular culture. So we have global paranoia, right? Yes. Yes. And this is where I need to start talking about UFO stories. Okay. Because during World War II, we start hearing UFO stories being widely disseminated in a way that really hadn't been possible before the invention of mass media. Service members pilots in multiple different theaters behaved really strangely, and these stories got circulated within military circles and then got disseminated outside the military.

And World War II was the first time that we saw aircraft flying at the high altitudes that they were at for the length of time that they were. And because the world was a global phenomenon, these stories got spread farther, like I said, it was, we now had mass media. And so these stories got passed on a scale that they would not have previously. Now in the ancient era and in the medieval era,

in up through the Renaissance, strange things got cited in the sky, and people attributed them to sorcery, witchcraft, magic, miracles. They had religious explanations. But now we have a public worldwide, but especially in the United States, that's obsessed with changing technology and the threat of nuclear annihilation. And so now they're looking for different explanations.

Yeah. Yeah. So so into when I talk about, you know, expansion of technology, the USSR detonated their first nuclear weapon in 1949, RDS-1. Now, of course, we'd had the Manhattan Project and Fat Man and Little Boy in 45. Now, the arms race really takes off after 49 because now the Soviets have a functioning nuclear weapon. So the US detonated its first hydrogen bomb at N O E talk A Tau in 1952, yielding an explosion a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, which is mind boggling. Yeah, that's that's seven years. Right. After Fat Man and Littleboy, the explosion healed was a thousand times more powerful. The Soviets detonated their first

thermonuclear weapon in 1953. Every test got bigger. Right. And as the ability to build bigger bombs grew so did the need to develop delivery platforms. And I just want to mention here, Zarbamba in 1961. I don't know about this. I could not buy that name. No. Okay. Zarbamba. In 1961, the Soviets detonated a 50 megaton nuclear warhead. Now, depending on whose estimate you're looking at, it's somewhere between 50 and 58 megatons. Well, this is on megaton. Okay. Megaton is, and so a kilotun is a thousand is equivalent to a thousand tons. So a mega TNT, a mega ton, I want to say is 10,000 tons. Okay. So 50 times 10,000 tons of TNT.

So that's, that's the explosive yield, not the actual weight of this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Nuclear weapons are always are always when they talk about megatons, kilotons, whatever. That's that's a measurement of the explosive yield. Okay. So this Sarbamba is on record as being the largest nuclear detonation ever to give you an idea of how devastating this was. First of all, the Soviets had not expected it to be that big. It was, it was, it was, that's comforting. It was horrifyingly successful.

I guess this is why we call them tests. Yes. The flare was visible from a thousand kilometers away. Wow. It was observed in Norway, Greenland, and Alaska. Where was the detonated? Holder effect. Way, way, way up north. Hold on. So it's Siberia. Let me, yeah, way, way, it was up at one of the territories that you could safely hold with one army and risk. Pretty much.

Yeah, not your cuts. Hold on. I think we're going to talk about above the Sukhoi noce Cape of Severney Island, Nolvia, Zemlia. So looking at a map here, that doesn't really tell me anything. It's basically way up north on the Barren's Sea. Oh, okay, okay. So I got you. So it was it was visible a thousand kilometers away. Wow.

The explosions nuclear mushroom cloud rose to a height of 67 kilometers. The blast wave circled the globe three times. This is a measurable blast wave, which doesn't mean everybody on the planet felt it, but it meant that they were able to measure the blast wave, which doesn't mean everybody on the planet felt it, but it meant that they were able to measure the blast wave coming back around three times. The first one took 36 hours and 27 minutes. It created a seismic wave in the Earth's crust that circled the globe three times. Wow. The atmospheric pressure wave resulting for the explosion was recorded three times in New Zealand. Glass shattered in windows 780 kilometers away from the explosion in a village on Dixon Island.

Wow. And radioactive contamination of the experimental field. Oh, this is the reason why we had shitty milk and cows for a while in Oregon. That'd be a meaningful question. I don't know. Oh, okay. Because I remember there was one that had that. Yeah, there was a village 55 kilometers away from ground zero. Mm-hmm. Every building in the village was flat. 55 kilometers away. 55 kilometers away. Geez. Okay. In places, hundreds of kilometers away, wooden houses were destroyed, stone houses lost their roofs,

windows, and doors, radio communications. I mean, this thing was in crit like way more successful than they'd hoped. Yeah, yeah, it was terrifyingly successful. Wow. And so at the same time, the United States was doing its own testing, both sides were stockpiling massive arsenals of warheads, all of which would be potentially launched into low earth orbit on rockets because at the same time that was going on, we have the space race happening.

Right. the same time that was going on, we have the space race happening. Right. And the space race actually started even before really the nuclear arms race in 1947, Stalin ordered the start of the Soviet ICBM program to counter perceived American advantages in terms of bomber capability. Because at that point, we had bomb. They did. Right. And we had the fleet of bombers 24, seven. And we had just started like on a fairly large commercial scale selling like not ice cream but frozen yogurt.

So our TCBY program was already light years ahead. So he was trying to catch up. Good day. That, that, that, that hurt. So we, we had our Pat Noughti rocket scientists. They had their Pat Noughti rocket scientists. Thank you. Operation Paperclip. Yep. And so both sides, pumped huge amounts of resources into rocket development. Mm-hmm. Because like, we had the bomb,

and what's better than a bomb is a bomb that you can launch from the other side of the planet without having anybody pilot a bomber. Right? And so this led to huge strides in rocket technology being made in a very, very short period of time. And both countries turned this into a completely different kind of competition. They turned it into the space race. First for PR reasons, this isn't about

weapons research, this is for exploration. We just, we want to be the first ones on the moon, we want to be the first ones in orbit, right? And there's also, again, the military idea of, well, you know, if we can get into orbit, whoever gets into orbit first has, you know, all kinds of strategic advantages, right? So in 1957, the Soviets in October succeeded, they reached a major milestone by managing to get Sputnik into orbit and keeping it there. And they got the first man-made satellite launched into a stable orbit. Right. Now, what I found out in doing my research for this episode

is the Russians heard that Von Braun was getting close and that he had a paper that he was going to be publishing and there was something, he was going to be, I lost the details between breeding the facts and putting my notes down. But basically, they got word that Von Braun was very close to getting a satellite in orbit. And so the Russians intentionally pushed their launch forward to beat him. We saw this with Oasis and Blur with their albums.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then what's what I what I also found funny about this was everything that the United States had done in rocketry

and space anything up to that point had not involved NASA because the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was not even founded until after Sputnik. Oh wow. There was a perceived, we were falling behind. We need to catch up, we need to form our own governmental, we can't just leave this to a bunch of different people and a bunch of different places in the Pentagon anymore. We have to have, this needs to be its own thing. And so they turned it into NASA in order to

devote more time and energy and money and central US efforts. Yeah. Right. And yeah. And that would bring us ahead and keep us safe. So maybe this will be the thing that's going to save me. Yes. Yes, yeah. And I don't know how to get from there to your my wonder wall, but nicely done. Thank you. Well, that's in Berlin. They they decided to compete in multiple different ways. Okay, okay. Yeah, and yeah, there's the Berlin wall. So you know, what I find So, well, you know, what I find worthy of note here is that no matter how many manned missions we sent up into space, nobody ever discovered the champagne

supernova. Also, yeah. And that would have been in the sky. It would have been. Yeah. So there you go. So then from there, over the course of the 60s and into the 70s with Mercury and then Apollo and all of those programs in the US and then with the Soviet equivalent of those programs which if I'm remembering correctly, the Soviets just left everything up to their military. It was always under the ages of the Soviet army. But the space race was a proxy war of sorts, where every success that one side had was the opportunity to stand in front of the rest of the world. You know, hey, look, they haven't done this yet. We're ahead. We're winning. front of the rest of the world going, Hey, look, hey, look, they haven't done this yet. We're ahead.

We're winning. And we're winning. What's the side you want to be on? Right. And what's the stake there is honestly way of life. Like our culture superior, local, we did. And so you see that happening. And then you also see that playing out in the Olympics.

Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, like who's got the better drugs? Um, but, um, yeah. And, and then it became like the Olympics and it was the Soviet Union and her proxies. Oh, yeah. The Soviet Union and East Germany. And it was the United States and West Germany. Yeah. And, yeah. So, yeah, like there were so many different ways

and places the cultural war was playing out. Because in many ways, you couldn't go to the nth degree on what you were doing with rocketry and bombing shit. Like you couldn't actually use them. Like you're going to kill the world and everybody knows it. So how do you prove that you're superior without killing the other group? Well, we can throw things further. You can throw things further. Like and it's just back and forth, back and forth. So there's, you know, which

again, I come back to the American, the American anti-black racism. It's really weird because a lot of the athletes that proved American superiority were people that were held in an apartheid state in America. Yes. Very strange. Yeah. But, you know, that's, and in many ways, that's fairly irrelevant except that that would have been and was a Soviet argument for,

okay, you beat us, but here's how you did it. You're not a superior culture. Look what you do, you know, and I mean, on some levels, that was Nixon and Khrushchev arguing at the kitchen debates. And we're both about, we did the kitchen debate that came up, I think, in our last or I think for're right episode because because we we talked about how Nixon just kind of completely lost the plot like yeah well but if you look at the core of the debate it was they were both arguing the same point to prove different things too the Soviets were like yeah you don't let your women be equals. And that's why you're lesser than us.

And America was like, yeah, we don't let our women be equals. And that's why we're better than you. Because look at all this cool devices that we have. And the Soviets are like, you know, it's funny. Yeah. It's funny, just reinforces that to any Soviet critic looking at the first season of Star Trek, the next generation, we told on ourselves with the Faringi. Yes, we did. They cloned their females, how obscene!

Right. emails, how obscene, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That immediately occurred to me when you when you said that, but yes. And so, you know, we have we have this this period during which everybody and and particularly everybody in dominant US culture has been, I don't want to say programmed, but that's the word that comes to mind has essentially been been indoctrinated. Yeah. Yeah. In into this this idea that there's us and there's them and they want us all dead.

You know, they or actually they don't want us dead, they want us enslaved. They want to take over and they want to institute their authoritarian regime. They want to, you know, completely do away with the the freedoms that we have in our individualistic society and make everybody, you know, live under the dictatorship of the collective. but they live under the dictatorship of the collective. Yeah, they want to take away our agency. Yeah, yeah. And so what we then see is, you know, the space races at the forefront of public consciousness,

we have this rapid march forward across all kinds of levels of technology. Okay. You know, we see the explosion of television as a medium in the 50s and into the 60s. And we have all of this cultural tumult in the same time period. So there's this deep, deep, deep level of anxiety. And some of it is internally directed, some of it is externally directed. And so we have technology, the forefront public consciousness, everybody deeply anxious at the prospect of nuclear annihilation and combined that led to the UFO craze. Okay, yeah. Okay. Now I mentioned that previously there had been, you know, there've been stories

since forever of strange lights in the sky, phenomena people couldn't explain, you know, there've been stories since forever of strange lights in the sky phenomena people couldn't explain you know and in earlier eras They'd all been attributed to witchcraft magic or religion Sure now it's weather balloons. Yeah, so And and I'm gonna be using a benchmark here that isn't necessarily terribly scientific, but it's, it works kind of for my purposes here. Between 1900 to 1947, okay, in the modern, okay, beginning of the 20th century.

Sure. There are seven incidents of unidentified flying objects being spotted that are recognized as historically important by Wikipedia. Okay. Okay. Of those seven, four occurred during World War Two, which is a period of very, very heightened anxiety and a whole lot of people being in the air at the same time. For the first time, really human history, at a really high altitude.

And lots of new tech. Yes. And a lot of more classified shit. Like, you know, and I mean, I see all that makes sense to me, because you finally have planes that are made of metal. You finally have planes that have jet engines attached. You finally have, you know, stuff like that. Like it goes, it goes like we're flying a hundred and something feet to we're shooting at each other with revolvers while taking pictures with you know really elongated camera to you know it's still canvas and you're getting close to that, you know, and then and then there's like this, you know, there's the interwar period and then suddenly shits made of metal. You actually have to have masks because you're going up high enough. You're not just wearing silk scarves and worried about chafing, you know, you've got suddenly you've got so much more planeness, you've got so much more crude

weapons or crude, not as in crude, but with crude men, who's the whole job is I am sitting in an airplane to operate a machine gun. Yeah, and that's just the weaponry. Then you've got the technology of radio transmitters and things like that. It's all so much more ubiquitous. Yeah, radio navigation. Yeah, the beginnings of radio guided bombs. And radar.

Yeah. Radar detection. I mean, all that stuff. So you've got all these things going on. And there's a higher need for classification, things being classified. So it makes perfect sense that you will literally see unidentified flying objects. Doesn't mean that they're you, they're, you know, graze. But it does mean that you can't identify it and shit that was fast. What the hell? Because you also have lots of engine work being done and stuff like that. So,

I mean, kinds of reasons why seven of those, do you say nine were four of those seven four of those seven were during World War two. That makes a perfect sense to me from a very logical, Occam's razor, it's still people building machines. That's right. That perspective. Yeah. So then between 1947 and 1948, or seven more incidents, for the course of one year. Yeah. Between 1950 and 1974, there were 34. There were 13 between 74 and 79 and 10 during the 1980s. And I kind of stopped counting after that because my thesis because my thesis deals with the exiles, which happens in 93. I would have and maybe this is the difference between you and me.

I want it, I want to know how many there were since smartphones. Because I have a theory that it goes way the fuck down. Yep. Like there's an inverse relationship between police brutality and the UFOs. It's, it's the smart phone. Yeah, I think, I think, I think you might be onto something there. Yeah. All right. So, and I'm going to get into two very early UFO stories that became central parts

of the canon of the UFO culture. Okay. And so doing, does it become kind of, this is a standard part of every UFO story as well. Does it kind of generalize out like that? Some what? Okay. Some what we're going to, I'll talk about it. Okay.

So in 1940, in June of 1947, all right. Now, think about where we are, again, in terms of the space race, 47 is when Stalin has ordered the start of the Soviet ICBM program. Right. We have the bomb. We know that the Soviets are working on trying to get the bomb. Right.

Right. So in June of 47, Soviets are working on trying to get the bomb, right? So in June of 47, Kenneth Arnold, a civil aviator, his businessmen flying his own aircraft, might have been a rented aircraft, I'm not sure, but he was piloting a plane in the Southern part of Washington State on a business trip, flying from,

I think he was headed to, from Tacoma to Yakima, by remembering right. And he reports what is widely considered to be the first UFO siding of the post were era. He is the first person to coin the term. Well, he doesn't really coin the term flying saucer, but he describes the craft as saucer shaped. Or a dis.

Or behaving like saucer's floating on water. Right. And he is the, his talking to the nationwide media is the first time we hear somebody attributing the construction of these craft to extra terrestrials. Okay. In print, he's the first person to say, this is not from this world. Okay.

Okay. And it's important to note here that again, this is 47 and you know, the nascent modern mass media his story got nationwide newspaper coverage. So this His his story is one of the first ones that gets broadcast right newspapers to the entire country Literally a month later in July of 47. You want to guess what what famous UFO event I'm going to refer to July 47. World's fair. Nope. Okay, hang on. Oh, oh, New Mexico. Yes. Yeah.

Correct. Roswell. Roswell. Yes. Early report, there was, there was some kind of disc-shaped object or crashed disc found in And so the the Air Force story was as you referenced a little bit ago that it was a weather blue. Mm-hmm. Popular mythology took off from there.

The Roswell crash has become a cornerstone of modern UFO culture. Right. You know, there were aliens recovered, you know, and they're hiding the bodies in area 51. Sure. We've been keeping our eyes on area 51. Yeah. Oh, all this kind of stuff. Declassified documents have since revealed that the Air Force's story that it was a weather balloon

was a clumsy attempt to cover up a classified monitoring system. It was actually, to me, it's actually even more fascinating than it being a UFO. It was essentially the same kind of balloon used for weather balloons. But it was an ultra high altitude, you know, metallic kind of balloon that was using microphones and radar sensors at stratospheric altitude in order to try to monitor Soviet nuclear tests from New Mexico, which again, you look at how fucking awesome is that? Yeah. And the sensitivity to those microphones, the sensors that they had to have going on,

and like holy shit, that's cool. But anyway, yeah. And it's from, you know, the fact that it's from New Mexico is actually, I mean, number one, pretty cool because of distance. But number two, keep an eye on the fact as to how much nuclear-based shit is happening out in those deserts. Like, you know, New Mexico. Oh really, again, New Mexico, wasn't that where we tested nuclear stuff? You know, because it's flat, so, you know, your weather conditions are going to be pretty reliable in a desert and stuff like that.

So there's a lot of reasons for why that's advantageous to do there. Definitely. So, okay. Okay. And so, and so, you know, that was part of what was called Operation Mogul was the defense department monitoring thing. Okay. So now over the course of the 1950s we see flying saucers now

become ubiquitous in science fiction. Right. The day the earth stood still. Yep. War of the world. War of the world. Yep. Oh, darn it. Probably the robots first appearance. Oh, darn it. Probably the robots first appearance. Forbidden plant it. The craft that the earthers, Kravillin is essentially a flying saucer, to serve man in Twilight Zone.

The concept of the flying saucer becomes a trope all on its own. Yeah, it does. In 1954, the unariious Academy of Science has found in Southern California. It has been referred to as a cult. What I, it is most famous for in my own head is the wife of the original founder made frequent appearances very late at night on like public access channels in an outfit that reminded a lot of people of nothing so much as Glinda the Good Witch of the South

from the Wizard of Oz and and the unaryous Academy of Science Science is is I think should be in scare quotes kind of the same way that democratic should be in scare quotes in front of you know democratic people's Republic of Korea. Right. This is a group who had the idea of benevolent alien intelligences having psychic contact with humanity as a central part of their teachings. And again, they're founded in 1954.

I feel like I touched on them in some of my research. God damn, if I can remember what I think it was when I was talking about cults. Probably. Yeah. But I yeah, and they're a lot. So yeah, and they're and and beliefs wise, they're kind of adjacent to the heavens gate people right But the unariest academy is I mean as far as I can figure essentially benign Their leadership never behaved in a way that was domineering or controlling of their members. They're just cookie sure

Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Now, that was founded. What year? 54. 54. Okay. Now, we're getting, you'd mention to serve man.

We're getting close to the twilight zone, which means we're also getting close to outer limits. So I'm curious if you're going to be touching on the composition of alien bodies. Oh, I am. Okay. Okay. Kind of sideways. Kind Oh, I am. Okay, okay. I'm kind of sideways to that. Okay. I'm kind of sideways though.

Okay. Because 1961 is a very, very important year in UFO lore because that's the year of the Hill abduction. Right, Betty Hill. Betty and Barney Hill of the Hampshire assert that they were abducted by aliens in 1961. This is one of the earliest abduction stories, might be the first abduction story in modern UFO lore.

And again, their story becomes the prototype for a lot of other stuff that shows up in stories after it. Betty, in particular, undergoing hypnosis, generates a map that appears to indicate the aliens were from Zeta reticuli. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, Yeah, that character is pulling on that mythology. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Barney's description of the aliens' eyes becomes canonical as the form for the

grays. He described them as having wrap around eyes. The case got a whole lot of attention, including an appearance on a game show by Barney in 1966 to tell the truth. Uh-huh. And James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons played the Hills in a TV movie in 1975. Now I know what you're gonna bring up here. Yep. 1961 alien with wrap around eyes. Yep. Shows up in an episode of Outer Limits the Polaro Shield. Yes. Yes. Shows up in an episode of the Outer Limits just a couple of weeks before the hills abducks should took place.

Right. Which by the way, I'm just going to point out there's a movie many, many years later called the hills have eyes and it just occurred to me how clever that is. It has nothing to do with it. And yet that whole fucking title absolutely comes back to this. It's a coincidence. It's like when you have accidental etymologies that actually

are not related, like, you know, the word goose and moose or something like that, you know, but but still very funny. Okay. So yes, the the Bolero shield essentially puts into the public imagination the very same description, which had changed by that point, if I recall correctly, Betty's original description was that they had, who's nose did she say they had? Like she named us celebrities. Yeah, I don't, I don't, there's short black and furry. I think it was like Jimmy Duranty or something. Well, she didn't, I, the stories that I read didn't indicate didn't indicate short black and furry, but they, they did have pronounced noses.

Yeah. And there was a description of the wearing kind of military cadet like uniforms. Yeah. like, had that like uniforms. Yeah. So, yeah. So that was, that was at the beginning. And then this show comes out. And then suddenly, you know, the description, to me, the time is, is Cady Wampus. Like, you've done the research.

So did the show come out before the abduction was supposed to have come out? Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. And, and there is that is that is one of the very, very popular or that is there's one of one of the more commonly pointed to things in debunking theories. Now she denied it up down and left and right. She's like,

I don't know what you're talking about. Our bled emits and never saw it. Yeah. Well, Betty, Betty can tonight all she wants, Barney admitted that he might have seen the show. I don't remember that part. Oh, that's fun. And the rapper on die's description comes from Barney. Oh, well, Jesus, okay, yeah. So yeah, cause she's, she, I don't remember her ever saying,

okay, I did probably see that. Like she was like, nope, never saw it, never saw it. An interesting theory, of course, anybody following along at home who's not independently knowledgeable about the Hill abduction will notice that I mentioned the 75 TV movies start James Earl Jones and an actress named Estelle Parsons.

It should be pointed out that Betty and Barney Hill were a biracial couple in 1961 in New Hampshire. One of the theories regarding their entire, one of the debunking theories regarding their entire experience was that it was something of a what's referred to in psychiatry as a fully-addu or A essentially a madness of two people where where two people get caught up in each other's crazy So like mass hysteria But localized to two folks. Yeah, yeah kind of a kind of a shared hallucination Okay, or shared episode that was brought on or induced from the stress of being a bibrational couple in 1961 in New Hampshire. The hills consistently

considered basically stated repeatedly that they found that theory to be insulting, that their marriage was a happy one. They loved each other very deeply and that that was not that was not what was going on. Sure. You know, but that's part of the, part of the, part of the debunking or part of the counter narrative to their story. There's also the fact that hypnosis has never been a reliable. I mean, there's, yeah, there's that too. When we did Batman, I spent a long time on the Val Kilmer, yeah, movie, and about implanted memories and shit like that. Oh, yeah, all of that.

Yeah. In 1968, or the purposes of the popularization of UFO lore, a very important moment in that history is the writing and publishing of chariots of the gods by Eric Vandaniken. Okay. Now, are you familiar with Vandaniken at his work. He wrote slaughterhouse five, right? No, that's Kurt Vannagut. Oh, different. OK.

Yeah, very, very different. No, Vandanaquin tried to assert, or he argues, that, let's see, the pyramids, the Nazca lines, the Moai of Easter Island, etc. People color did that was really kick ass. Yeah, Atlantis. I mean, it's not all people of color. White people supposedly were good Atlantis, but all of that was either built by aliens or by humans who've learned how to do it from aliens.

Right. Cause how could they get such straight lines over such distances, etc. Yeah. Yeah. How could they get such straight lines over such straight, over such long distances? How could they haul all the blocks up there, etc. Never mind the fact that we can actually look at the archaeological records and see, oh, they learned how to do it because several centuries before the pyramid of Giza, they built the step pyramid, which by the way, everybody built step pyramids because, as has been pointed out by smart asses on the internet correctly, it's the most efficient way to stack a whole bunch of rocks on top of each other in a way that they don't fall down. Right. Oh, right. Yeah. It's like when people like, how

do the Romans build such big things? The first answer is of course, they kept enslaving Greeks. such big things. The first answer is, of course, they kept enslaving Greeks. But the second answer, and everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. But specifically for the math. But the second answer was, it really, I mean, it's true. Romans were Biff Tannen. I mean, they really were. Yeah. Um, but, uh, the second answer is they built dirt mounds. Yeah. And, and, and stacked shit. They built a fucking ramp. Yeah. And then they, and then they pushed it up the way the dirt, and then they, and they pulled away the ramp. You know, it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting, uh, kind of side note here, talking about that, that of course, uh, hero of Alexandria came up with a

steam engine in the classical era. And nobody did anything with it. And we, and we look at it, if from a modern point of view, we look at it, we're like, why the fuck didn't you capitalize on the steam engine? Like, oh my God, imagine what could have happened in world history if they had capitalized on the steam engine. You want to know why they didn't capitalize on the steam engine? Too loud. No, they didn't fucking need it because they had slave labor. Oh, Jesus.

I mean, that's, I mean, the cotton gin continued slavery in America. Yeah. Long past, you know, but had that had it was on its way out too, because it was getting in the way of shit economically as an institution. Yep. So yeah, there you go. Yeah, they didn't need the steam engine because labor is ridiculously cheap. We don't need the steam engine because we can just get 5,000 guys to work on a job. Right. You know, have you seen the internals?

I have not. Oh, okay. There's this wonderful, I'll let you borrow the desk. There's because I insist on having physical media of all the things because I don't trust streaming to always be there. But the really, I mean, it's a really cool character, but his name is Phastos, which how fast is this, right? And he is the mechanic. He is the designer of, that's his thing, right? And he's building a steam engine back during like ancient Greek Mesopotamian times. like Ancient Greek Mesopotamian times. And they're like, no, it's not,

that's too far ahead for them. He's like, fine, here's a plow. They can break up the earth if they drag it. And they're like, good, good. And he's like, my talent's are wasted here. So it's actually his arc is a tragic and painful and wonderful one. So yeah, you'll like it. So okay. So, uh, those have eyes. Yeah. And along with, you know, how could ancient people have built this, uh, his,ans, Archimedes, also, based on

there's ancient artwork that clearly depict astronauts and aliens. Oh my god. Because if you look at the stone carvings and the inside of Maya buildings, you can see what clearly is an astronaut sitting in a capsule with flames behind him, and there's Jomon period, Japanese artwork that very clearly shows some kind of an alien being, because it's got a humanoid body in the weird insectoid looking kind of head, or maybe it's wearing a helmet that looks like an astronaut helmet.

And so clearly that's what's going on. I mean, it's like it's absolutely batshit, crazy. It reminds me of the stupidity of early archaeologists and anthropologists who saw the Venus sculptures. I think I mentioned this just recently. I don't know if it was on this podcast or another where they would look at the Venus sculpt. You know what I'm talking about the Venus sculptures?

Really out size breasts really fat, huge, like, yeah, like, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna say grotesque because the features are so exaggerated. Yes, in the literary sense of grotesque. Yes, and I do not mean grotesque in any other way because look at us. But I, and the archaeologists are like, oh, well, clearly these are fetish icons

that men made to beat off to. I mean, it was basically their thesis. And it held water for like 30 years. As, oh yeah, these were erotic statues for men. And then women finally got into the goddamn job. And they looked at them and they're like, And then women finally got into the goddamn job. And they looked at them and they're like, now this was like maybe fertility stuff,

but it's essentially it's self-portrait carving by pregnant women. Cause if you look down when you're pregnant, this is what it looks like. Right. And it just went from like, guys are jerking off to these too. He fucking idiots. Like, yeah, well,

there's celebrating pregnancy. All right. Like this is, yeah, this is, this is why we need more diversity in academia. Yes. Yes. Like we're done.

You know, and, and there's the recurring joke that anytime you see anybody say, and this, this here was for ritual purposes. Yeah, you know what it is? It's a deal, though. Right. Hey, break it to you. But that or, or we have to understand that the complexities of the language back then meant different things about friendships. And it's like, I want all the dicks in my butt. Yeah.

You know, and you're, because like Roman, Jesus Christ, Roman, Roman graffiti is just, I mean, nothing's changed. I'll put it that way. It looks just like middle school graffiti. So one of the things I was a little worried about when we went to Pompeii when it took a bunch of students and I explained to them ahead of time and like just so you know, you might see a lot of dick mobiles or mobiles, you know, like the thing that the danglies because there were a lot of those. So yeah, just be prepared. Yeah, next time I'll turn it into like a scavenger hunt for the kids. Oh, there you go. Yeah, way to do it

So all right. I'm so it's aliens. Yeah, I'm I'm gonna Say I think right here is a good kind of breakpoint Mobile yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, cuz I mean that's a note I want to end on But I think I think Eric Vandanin and and chariots of the gods is one of those inflection points in popular culture where this became a thing. And these ideas the dominant western kind of pop culture, and kind of, you know, most everybody would be aware of this kind of theory and of this kind of stuff.

And so I think I'm gonna pause here where we're talking about the explosion and almost mainstreaming of the UFO craze and ask you what is your takeaway right here? World War II fucked everyone up emotionally and psychologically they didn't have the tools to address any of it and so they got into some weird ass shit, all of which seem to coalesce around their own lack of importance in their own world. You had huge amounts of like naturalistic cult shit. Like when I did the, the, the, the guests, we had the guests on for the dark crystal. the dark crystal. We found a fuck ton of culty stuff and of like seances, channeling spirits and just getting out of this reality. And a lot of it was started by people that started that that went through World War Two. Like the modern wika thing not wick a as people know it, but like the modern iteration of it. So it is kind of as people know it, but it's not how people know it. That was started by a

frogman from World War Two in Britain. I've been trying to track down his name ever since I found that because I lost it, damn it. But you know, you have the founding of those kinds of things big time. We talked about that with the Punisher episode, just aired, although as of this recording, it aired about a month ago. But we talked about it with the Punisher with the guy who was the inspiration of it, the one who wrote the executioner, because then he went into how to challenge channel, channel spirits. Yeah. So you've got that, you've got alien shit, really kicking in in the 1940s and 50s. Again, at least there's some rational explanation for why people went into that, but I think at the end of it all, you know, because there's so many more fluks in the air, There's so many more fluke's in the air. But at the end of it all, I really do think that World War II messed up an entire world's

psyche and their own insignificance was so painfully obvious that they sought to explain it in a variety of ways. I don't want to believe. I think at the end of the day, I don't want to believe. I think at the end of the day, I don't want to believe. I don't. Yeah, apparently not. But I understand why they did it. I'm not going to look down my nose at people for wanting to believe and for wanting to feel like we're not alone because they just went through a huge conflagration where like we better not be alone because we just try to kill each other. Oh, God, damn time. And we're getting better at it, you know, like yeah. So, so yeah, I think that I think that collective trauma led to the willingness

to believe. Okay. You also start to see a lot more fundamental versions of religions about a generation later. This is true. So simultaneously, along with the UFO stuff, there's also, like I couldn't really figure out how to tie this in in a way that didn't like completely blow this up and make it so I wouldn't have something to actually present for like weeks because of all the stuff I'd have to go off and look at. But in the 1970s, which we haven't totally gotten to yet, but you know, Vondana can is kind of the, I wanna say the precursor kind of to it.

There's all this a cult shit and all this, like, you know, cryptid, like bigfoot was had had his moment. Yeah. In the 1970s. So did DB Cooper in the same area. Yeah. There's still. Yeah. So, yes. But, you know, the Loch Ness monster, the Bernmier to triangle. a little Adelphi experiment gets really popular. This is true. And so all of this paranormal shit becomes a big deal in the 70s. And I think I can kind of touch on that a little bit more in the beginning of the next episode. But yeah, I think there was definitely something going on in everybody's psyche related to helplessness.

Now, here's where it gets dangerous to me. All of that's true. I think all of that absolutely, and I understand the link between those things, I think, pretty well there. understand the link between those things, I think pretty well there. Leads to like, you have to top the last guy kind of stuff. And it needs to people, um, falling into anti-Semitic conspiracy theory bullshit. Like it almost always gets there. Like we'll you talk about people always, you know, it's anti-Semitic, you know, people are always,

people are always waiting. There's always some asshole. Uh-huh. Waiting for something to come along that they can, that they can take and throw in that direction. Yes. Is, is, is kind of, I think, what that is. Yeah, yeah. You know, also there's a, no, I think you're right. I think that's, that's, I just don't want to put the blame just on some anonymous singular guy who goes, yeah, just right.

Yeah, no, no, no, there's a social, like, there is a, I'm gonna use the word western to paint with the broad brush here, but there's a western cultural thing, a social tendency toward specifically othering Jews and specifically tying, because a lot of this alien shit gets back to that. A lot of it. A lot of it does. Yeah, because anytime there's conspiracy,

it gets towards somebody's trying to control us and it gets right back to your protocols of the elders of Zina. Yeah, which for some reason we can't see the shake. Right. So maybe that's one of the reasons that I'm so viscerally bothered by so viscerally. No, no, fuck that. Yeah. This is dumb. This is they were dumb. They were dumb. TV. This was bad. Yeah, they should feel trauma for my first marriage. So anyway. So, so there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to call him a little of column B. Yeah. Yeah. A smidge of colon A, a column A, and then the rest is the very rational. No, this leads to some really dumb shit. Yeah. So, But yeah, that's what I've

cleaned. So okay. Yeah. Cool. So we'll pick up from here next episode. Yeah. What have you got to recommend to anybody? You know, I saw that they were banning mouse. Yeah. And I didn't even mean to get to this from here, get there from here. You can't get there from here, but you can. But yeah, so I'm going to say they were banning mouse. I believe in Tennessee known for being super chill when it comes to different ideas and yeah, and books. And so they were banning it because I had the word damn in it. So I immediately bought mouse one and two. And that's going to be summer reading for my kids. But not content with teaching my kids about the Holocaust over the summer.

I also got the jungle as a graphic novel. There's I found it years and years ago in our own school library back when those things existed. But the jungle is what I'm going to recommend specifically. I also recommend mouse. I really do. So I'll recommend to the mouse one and two by art speaglement. And also the jungle, a graphic novel. It is credited to Uptancing Claire obviously, but it was adapted and illustrated by Christina Garman or Garamon, G-E-H-R-M-A-N-N. And my kid, that's going to be part of my kid's summer

reading as well. So William's going to catch up on March. He finished, they called us enemy. Julia read both, cause she stays up late and reads. But then they're both gonna read mouse and they're both gonna read the jungle. She also read Barefoot Gen, which, your renightmares.

Yeah. But honestly, it's told from the perspective of a kid her age. So I was okay with that. Yeah, that makes up. So, but anyway, so that I'm going to recommend mouse one and two, and I'm going to recommend the jungle, the graphic novel by, what does it say, Christina? Come on.

Okay. So how about you? How about you work? I'm going to recommend that anybody who hasn't done so, take a little bit of time, a couple of hours and watch at the very least the first couple of episodes of the X-Files. Okay.

If you can't find them anywhere else, you can find them on YouTube. The quality will probably not be that great, but find them and watch them. I bet you Tubi has them. Tubi has almost for sure. Yeah. I'm going to strongly recommend watching the pilot and at least one of their episodes.

Just because what I've gone over right here is talking about the UFO craze. And then the X-Files is kind of the 90s answer to the UFO craze. And it is so much an artifact of its time. And for anybody who's listening to this show who is, you know, significantly younger than you and me, there is so much in the X-Files that is a primer on what the 90s were. And so I think as a historical artifact, it's important. And it's also just really, really well done television. So that's going to be a recommendation, I think, for this week.

Cool. Well, where can people find you on the social media? I can be found on TikTok as Mr. underscore Blalock. I can be found on Twitter as EH Blalock. And I can be found on Insta also as EH Blalock. And I can be found on Insta also as EH Blalock. Where can you be found, sir? You can find me on the Twitter and the Insta at duh Harmony, two H's in the middle. And on the ticktocks, I'm slinging puns left, right in the center on the Harmony 1 still to H is in the middle. Also, depending on when this air is April 1st, if you're in the Sacramento area, we're trying live again. You have to have all your shots. Get all three, $10 at the door, show your proof of vaccination and booster and come and see us at Luna's at 8 p.m. on April the 1st.

This is not a joke. Yeah, so capital punishment was supposed to be back in January, was supposed to be back in February, supposed to be back in March, but um, Omicron Omicron Omicron Omicron, well Delta Omicron Omicron, so I'm hopeful, but cautiously so, but telling y'all go go check that out. So, yeah. So, all right, well for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s. Thank you.