Today, we’re circling back to an idea that we visited in one of the earliest episodes of the podcast—the extratempestrial model. Sometimes also referred to as the future human hypothesis, the extratempestrial model is the idea that the UFOs phenomenon might represent advanced humans and human descendents who are traveling here from another point in time.

I’ll admit to struggling with this idea at first. Time travel has always seemed a little too clunky and a little too hokey to be taken seriously. But as so often happens on this trip down the rabbit hole, the more I learned and the more my perspective began to swell and shift to accommodate the strange new realities I was exploring, the more what once seemed like a kind of crazy idea to me suddenly started to make a heck of a lot of sense. And I found that many of my objections had more to do with the limitations of my knowledge than the limitations of the extratempestrial model.

So I wanted to come back around to this idea, because there is a lot there to dig into, most of which didn’t make it into the initial episode. And there are some new and updated ideas that I think are really valuable in understanding the complexities of the phenomenon. And there’s no better way to take a deep dive into this topic than with one of the people who literally wrote the book on the extratempestrial model—Dr. Michael P. Masters.

Micahel Masters is a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Technological University. He specializes in human evolution, osteology, and anatomical sciences. Dr. Master’s work related to the phenomenon explores the potential evolutionary trajectories of humankind, linking anthropological theory to hypotheses about extraterrestrial life. He is the author of several books on the topic including Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon, The Extratempestrial Model, and his latest, a satirical science fiction novel called, Revelation: The Future Human Past.



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TIMESTAMPS
00:30 - Introduction
07:20 - What Is The Extratempestrial Model?
09:50 - The Extratempestrial Model & The Interdimensional Hypothesis
11:29 - The Social & Biological Trends That Hint At The Extratempestrial Model
16:32 - Technology & The “Other”
20:48 - Technological Variability In Humans
21:02 - The Communication Problem
25:38 - How Technology Is Shaped By Biology
28:52 - Exotic Bipedal Beings
32:17 - Could Humanoid Beings Be The Result of Biomimicry?
37:08 - Are UFOs Time Machines?
43:50 - The Nimitz Incident
47:18 - Rethinking The Impossible
49:57 - The Block Universe
59:02 - Revelation: The Future Human Past

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In this episode, we explore the complexities of confronting the reality of UFO disclosure. Information that significantly challenges your worldview can be hard to process. In light of UFO whistleblower David Grusch’s recent allegations—that the US government is in possession of non-human craft and bodies—even those within the community who thought that they were ready for these kinds of revelations have found themselves reeling.

In this episode, we discuss ontological shock—what it is, how to cope with it, and how to avoid the major pitfalls. And we work on beginning to resolve our ontological shock but getting ourselves reoriented in a world where nothing is as we once thought it was.

No matter where you are in your journey, I hope this episode offers you something that you can take for the road. And if you know people who are just starting out, or who are finding themselves feeling disoriented right now in ways they can’t identify, this is a great episode to share with them.


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TIMESTAMPS
00:00:30 Introduction
00:05:30 Ontological Shock
00:07:29 The Signs of Ontological Shock
00:08:42 The Pitfalls of Ontological Shock
00:14:07 Resolving Ontological Shock
00:16:47 What Exactly Are We Dealing With?
00:19:00 How Has Perception of the UFO Phenomenon Changed Over Time?
00:19:11 -UFOs: 1947 to Present
00:23:48 -UFOs: Before 1947
00:29:13 What Forces Have Shaped & Influenced The Perception Of UFOs
00:29:44 -Cultural Context
00:36:47 -The Government
00:50:38 -The Media
00:57:47 -The Phenomenon
01:00:25 Who Can You Trust?



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On Monday, June 5th, 2023, a story was published by The Debrief presenting claims from the first whistleblower to step forward publicly since the passing of UAP whistleblower legislation with the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act a few months ago. This whistleblower, David Charles Grusch, is a high-level member of the intelligence community, and he is claiming to have knowledge of special access programs that have recovered non-human technological craft.

Later that same day, an excerpt from an interview with the whistleblower conducted by investigative journalist, Ross Coulthart, was aired on NewsNation in which Rusch made even more shocking claims—including the allegation that the US has also recovered the bodies of the non-human pilots of these craft.

In this episode we do a deep dive into this story, doing our best to frame it within the great context of the disclosure movement, and ask the question: what does all this mean? And can what David Grusch is saying really be true?



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TIMESTAMPS
00:30 Introduction
03:14 What Makes This Story So Significant?
07:10 Why Wasn’t The UFO Whistleblower Story In The New York Times?
10:02 What Led Up To This?
10:17 -Luis Elizondo & the 2017 New York Times Article
12:31 -The UAP Task Force
14:02 -AARO
16:50 -2023 NDAA
17:10 What Is David Charles Grusch?
20:10 Who Did Grusch Talk To?
20:42 What Did Grusch Tell Congress?
23:35 Wait—So David Grusch Never Saw The Craft Or Bodies?
27:19 How Do We Know David Grusch Is Who He Says He Is?
27:57 -Karl E. Nell
28:27 -Christopher Mellon
29:13 -Jonathan Grey
30:43 -Jim Shell
31:32 Retaliation and Disclosure of Urgent Concerns
34:02 David Grusch’s Interview with Ross Coulthart
37:08 Thoughts on the Interview
40:23 The Implications of Grusch’s Allegations
47:57 Pentagon Response
48:14 What Can We Do?

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In this episode, I spoke with author, illustrator, and researcher, Mike Clelland. Mike is the author of several books, two of which we’ll be discussing directly in this episode. The first is The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity, and the UFO Abductee. The second is his latest release, The Unseen, which is a fiction book that deals with many of the themes of his other work. He also provided the illustrations for the book The Cryptoterrestrials: A Meditation on Indigenous Humanoids and the Aliens Among Us by Mac Tonnies, that we’ll also be discussing in this episode. You can find links to all of his work below.


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BOOKS BY MIKE CLELLAND
The Messengers: Owls, Synchronicity and the UFO Abductee
The Unseen
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Today we’re diving into Part 2 of the Waking Up Inside The Cave series. If you haven’t listened to that part 1 yet, I highly recommend that you do so first. It’s linked in the episode brief.

For many who take the trip down the UFO rabbit hole, there comes a point where you find yourself asking much bigger questions about reality. It boils down to this:

The UFO phenomenon is impossible by every single measure that we use to determine such things, and yet it is. And the existence of the impossible posits that the models that we use to determine what is possible and what isn’t are irretrievably flawed. There is no other logical explanation. Frankly, if UFOs don’t make you question the nature of your reality, you haven’t understood them.
In part 1 of this series, we took a closer look at the most fundamental mean-making models that we have starting with the very origins of the universe. And I made the case that very little about this narrative makes any kind of rational sense, and that its only real utility lies in explaining things away without actually explaining them at all. When exposed to the harsh light of objective interrogation, the consensus view of reality quickly dissipates like morning fog.

Plato’s Cave has become a touchstone in this podcast because it provides the perfect framework for discussing the process of pursuing this line of questioning. And as we begin to recognize that consensus reality is little more than a shadowplay on the wall, the inevitable questions arise:

Where are we? What is this place? And what is the shadowplay meant to conceal?

We discussed back in episode 18 in my first interview with James Madden that humans are natural cave builders. All of the greatest achievements of civilization have required that we be able to create shared worldviews and agreed upon meanings for things. It’s our superpower every bit as much as it is our weakness. And I think it’s important to keep in mind that just because we find ourselves in a cave doesn’t necessarily mean that someone put us there. The walls of the cave could be entirely self-created.

And yet, when you find yourself tied up in a cave and recognize that the very nature of your reality has been concealed, seemingly intentionally, it’s impossible not to wonder about who your potential captors might be–and about what strange new world might be waiting for you outside its walls.

Over the past several years a strange and disturbing idea has been popularized by everyone from futurists to tech billionaires–namely that we are living in a simulation. Could this be the explanation for the strange position in which we find ourselves? Could Plato’s Cave be more than just an allegory? Could what we perceive as our reality actually be our prison?

It sounds like the plot of The Matrix, but the more we learn, the more likely this unsettling scenario becomes. Buckle up, because this rabbit hole is going to be a wild ride.


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Ryan Sprague is the creator and host of the Somewhere in the Skies podcast and the author of the new book Stories from Somewhere in the Skies. He is a regular on Ancient Aliens (History Channel) and a lead investigator and co-host of Mysteries Decoded (CW Network). Sprague’s research finds him interviewing witnesses, scientists, military personnel, and intelligence officials directly on UFOs, writing for The Debrief. Speaking on UFOs, he has been featured on ABC News and 7News Australia. He has consulted for Amblin Entertainment and been featured in Newsweek, The NY Post, and VICE.



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In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Avi Loeb. Dr. Loeb was the longest serving chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy from 2011–2020. In June 2020, he was sworn in as a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. And, most relevant to today’s conversation, he is also currently the head of Harvard’s Galileo Project whose mission is the systematic scientific search for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts.


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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
The article written by Avi Loeb & Sean Kirkpatrick:
Physical Constraints on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

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CONTACT IN THE DESERT
See Dr. Avi Loeb, Graham Hancock, George Noory and many more incredible speakers at Contact in the Desert taking place June 2-4, 2023.

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Today we welcome back Dr. James Madden to the show. As I’m sure you’ll recall, Jim joined us a couple of months ago for a discussion about Plato’s Cave. We also discussed some of his latest work applying the philosophical concept of the umwelt to the UFO phenomenon. And I was really excited to see that that episode has become one of the most listened to episodes of the podcasts, because it’s definitely one of my favorites. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, I highly recommend that you go back to that one first. Jim’s work builds on itself, and it will be helpful to lay down the foundation with that episode before moving onto this one.

In this episode, we’ll be moving on to Dr. Madden’s latest work. Over the last few months, in a flurry of articles released through his Substack, Jim has laid out a series of arguments as to the nature of the UFO phenomenon that are, frankly, mind blowing. It’s not over-stating things to say that what Jim has done is to essentially break ufology–and I mean that in the best possible way.

Because, in many ways, it’s been clear to anyone who is really paying attention that the traditional models and ontologies that have dominated modern ufology have needed to break. We began this podcast talking about what the UFO phenomenon might be, and we did a deep dive into the primary hypotheses including extraterrestrial, ultraterrestrial, interdimensional, extraterrestrial, etc. And all of those models are really useful for helping us to push our thinking about what the intelligence behind UFOs may represent. But if we’re being really honest with ourselves, we have to admit that none of them really fit. They come close in some ways, fall short in others, and ultimately leave us feeling like we’re trying to stretch a full-sized sheet over a queen-sized bed.

What we’ve needed–desperately–is a model that would collapse all of those ontological categories and integrate them into a larger, more coherent whole. And I’d argue that what Dr. Madden is postulating with regard to the UFO phenomenon does exactly that. I truly believe that what he is pointing to here is the future of ufology. This work is urgent and critically important for us moving forward.



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DR. JAMES MADDEN’S WORK
The Substack
Articles Referenced In This Episode:

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Today I’m bringing you something really special. A few weeks ago, Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka reached out to connect me with someone she thought I might be interested in interviewing for the podcast. Her name is Dr. Iya Whiteley and she is a space psychologist who is featured in Diana’s upcoming book due out in November entitled, Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences.

Given the respect that I have for Diana and her work, her recommendation alone would have been enough for me to say yes. But the more she shared with me about Dr. Whiteley and her work, it became clear to me that this was an interview that I absolutely had to do.

This conversation touched me deeply, and I hope it speaks to you the way that it spoke to me.

MEET DR. IYA WHITELEY
Dr. Iya Whiteley is a training developer for Astronauts with a background in Clinical Psychology and Cognitive Engineering. She leverages her skills and expertise, combined with her own insights and experiences as a pilot, skydiver, and scuba diver, to design both equipment and training programmes to improve the performance of highly trained professionals in extreme environments, including military pilots and astronauts.

Iya has also worked at the European Astronaut Centre (European Space Agency) in Cologne, Germany and now collaborates with NASA and the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia.

Since having her own children, Iya has been using her unique skillset to work on laying the groundwork for a universal “Earth language”. To this end, she has designed high contrast black and white visual books for newborns to tap into their full developmental potential and give them the best possible start on our unique planet Earth.

MEET DR. DIANA WALSH PASULKA

Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka is a professor of religious studies and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She holds a bachelor’s from UC Davis, a master’s from Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University. She is the author of Heaven Can Wait: Purgatory in Catholic Devotional and Popular Culture and American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, which we will be discussing in this interview.



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DR. IYA WHITELEY LINKS
Contact Dr. Iya Whiteley [Private Practice Website]
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DR. DIANA PASULKA LINKS
American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology
PRE-ORDER: Encounters: Explorations with Extraterrestrial and Other Non-Human Intelligence (Out Nov. 7, 2023)
Follow Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka on Twitter

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As predicted, 2023 has already been a massive year for the UFO disclosure movement. As we seemingly gain momentum, and with a fresh round of congressional hearings on UAPs potentially just around the corner, this felt like the perfect moment to dive into the progress made so far.

And there’s no one better for this conversation than Christopher Sharp of the Liberation Times. Chris is an independent journalist hailing from the UK who has consistently been beating the mainstream media to the punch on some of the biggest stories related to UFO disclosure. The nuance and deep investigation that he brings to his work is one of the very few beacons of true journalism in this field. Beyond his work with the Liberation Times, Chris also regularly writes for the Daily Mail.

In this episode Chris shares:

🛸 What he's hearing from his sources about the origins of the mysterious objects shot down in Feb
🛸 The surprising source for the push for disclosure
🛸 What we can expect from upcoming Congressional UFO hearings (and when those might happen)
🛸 The scandal hiding in plain sight that has Congress finally clocking in on the UFO issue
🛸 And more



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