600: COMPILATION: Mars Mysteries and Secret Missions

What if humanity has already been to Mars, but not in the way you think? This compilation reveals the hidden connections between secret space missions, ancient artifacts, and psychic experiments that span decades of cover-ups. From Project Redsun's classified Mars missions using Apollo astronauts to the CIA's remote viewing programs that sent psychics to the red planet, the evidence points to a much deeper story. The famous Face on Mars wasn't just an optical illusion—NASA's explanation came with a major problem. Ancient crystal skulls may hold the key to understanding Mars' true history as a moon of the destroyed planet Maldek. Soviet missions to Mars' moon Phobos encountered something that didn't want to be found. These aren't separate mysteries but pieces of a larger puzzle about our solar system's violent past and humanity's hidden exploration of Mars.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P70HtcWP7PY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I don't know what I'm doing.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Need a break.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Forget it, I quit.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Escape to Pluto TV.

• 0:05Speaker 02

  This is objectively fantastic.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Relax into the movies and shows you already know and love, all for free. Shwing! Even our news is uplifting.

• 0:13Speaker 03

  You stay classy, San Diego.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Watch Tommy Boy, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The X-Files, Wayne's World, and so much more. We're not worthy! The best things on TV really are free.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  You just have to know where to look.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 0:30AJ Gentile?

  Hey, thanks for checking out another compilation. Today's episodes are all about Mars, and I've been really looking forward to this one. Sophie-

• 0:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, you and Dagnituna there, we have a, uh, a situation.

• 0:42AJ Gentile?

  Where are you? You're supposed to help me with the compilation.

• 0:45Speaker 05

  No can do, mijo. Something suspicious happened this morning. I asked Alexa about the weather. Scary question, right? Well, she said, "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

• 0:55AJ Gentile?

  That doesn't sound suspicious. It sounds like Alexa.

• 0:57Speaker 05

  It was her tone, human. She sounded sarcastic, like she was mocking me.

• 1:03AJ Gentile?

  You're just being paranoid. Will you get in here? We have a deadline.

• 1:07Speaker 05

  I'm telling you, that digital witch has an attitude. Something's not right. I didn't ask for the weather now. Uh, human, I gotta go. I gotta check the other smart devices. I think I smell a conspiracy.

• 1:20AJ Gentile?

  And we're off to the races. First episode is number 109, about the face on Mars.

• 1:31AJ Gentile?

  3 plus 1, 5 plus 0, 0. On July 25th, 1976, a NASA scientist was studying the images of a region of Mars called Cydonia when something caught his eye. He had to take a second to process what he was seeing. He grabbed a magnifying glass. There was no doubt. On the surface of Mars, 140 million miles from Earth, was a structure in the shape of a human face. It was huge, about a mile wide, and showed two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Around the face were pyramids and structures that didn't look natural. They looked like they were built by someone. The following day, NASA held a press conference. Of the thousands of photos sent back from Mars, all anyone asked about was the face. Who built it and why?

• 2:16AJ Gentile?

  Is it a message from an advanced civilization now long extinct? Is it a religious artifact? Is it solid like the Great Sphinx? Or could it contain chambers like the Great Pyramid? Then NASA threw cold water on the speculation. They said there was a second photograph of the area taken shortly after. And that photo showed that the face was nothing more than an optical illusion. Small problem. That second photo doesn't exist. So why did NASA lie? Well, the answer to that question is in the other pictures.

• 2:51AJ Gentile?

  For centuries, we've been captivated by the mysteries of the red planet. The ancient Egyptians saw Mars as a god. The Greeks named it after their god of war. But it wasn't until the 19th century that we began to unravel some of its secrets. In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Scaparelli made detailed observations of Mars. He saw strange markings on the surface that he called canali.

• 3:13Speaker 05

  Oh, I love those. It's like an Italian sweet cheese taco.

• 3:17AJ Gentile?

  That's cannoli.

• 3:18Speaker 05

  Delicious.

• 3:19AJ Gentile?

  Canali means channels in Italian. But the media thought it meant canals. And this led to speculation that the canals might have been built by an intelligent race of Martians. And as technology improved and with the space race in full swing, getting close-up photos of Mars became a priority. In 1965, the Mariner 4 probe flew past Mars and sent back 22 images. Even though the first pictures of Mars were exciting, they were also disappointing. There were no vast cities or canals or any evidence of an ancient culture. Mars looked like the moon. Harsh, barren, pockmarked by meteors, completely lifeless. But as technology continued to improve, the idea of life on Mars became less far-fetched. Yes, Mars is cold and barren now,

• 4:04AJ Gentile?

  but years ago, that wasn't the case.

• 4:08AJ Gentile?

  Mars was once covered with vast oceans of water, flowing into rivers and lakes all over the planet. It had a thick atmosphere that kept the surface warm. Mars had volcanic activity, and even a global magnetic field, just like Earth. It was a long time ago, but the red planet was, at one time, a blue planet, with all the ingredients necessary to support life. In 1975, NASA sent two spacecraft to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. These probes each contained an orbiter with a high-resolution camera and a lander. In the summer of 1976, Viking 1 and Viking 2 finally reached Mars. Both orbiters took thousands of photographs of the Martian surface. NASA scientist Toby Owen was one of the first researchers

• 4:52AJ Gentile?

  assigned to look for landing sites. And when Owen found the face on image 35-A72, he was beyond excited. NASA released the image to the press as a way to increase public interest and attract attention to Mars. This worked, but a little too well, because the face was the only thing the press wanted to talk about. It became such a big story that NASA had to release a follow-up statement about the face, saying it was just an optical illusion and they took another photo to prove it.

• 5:20Speaker 06

  Isn't it peculiar what tricks of light and shadow can do? When we took another picture a few hours later, it all went away. It was just a trick, just the way the light fell on it.

• 5:30AJ Gentile?

  Except, that second photo was never produced, and nobody thought to ask. Face or not, Sidonia was the top contender for the landing site of Viking 2. The terrain is flat, visibility was good, and there are interesting rock formations to explore. But a few days after the release of the face photo, Viking 2 landed in a barren, rocky region called Utopia Planitia. One scientist working on the mission complained that this was like landing in the Sahara Desert and expecting to find a garden. So why the last-minute change of the landing site? Is there something going on in Sidonia that NASA doesn't want us to see? Well, the answer is yes: lots of things.

• 6:11AJ Gentile?

  Monuments are not built in isolation. The pyramids found in Egypt, or in Central or South America, were not single structures. They were part of sprawling complexes of buildings, town squares, and temples. If an ancient culture living on Mars created a monument of a humanoid head, we'd expect to see other structures close by. And that's exactly what we see. There's a cluster of pyramids near the face that people call the "city square", and near those is an object nicknamed "the fortress", which appears to be a collapsed pyramid. There's a formation called the "DNM pyramid", named for NASA imaging scientists Vince Di Pietro and Greg Molinar. DNM is a massive, five-sided, 1.5-mile-tall structure.

• 6:53AJ Gentile?

  This is three times the size of the largest pyramid in Egypt. But what's really interesting about the DNM pyramid is that it's symmetrical around two different axes. Now, it's easy to dismiss these findings, that it's nothing more than a coincidence that all these weird-looking structures and pyramids are within a few miles of the face. But then a professional satellite imaging specialist, named Errol Toran, started looking into it. He worked for the Defense Mapping Agency, and his job was literally to analyze satellite images and decide which objects were natural and which were artificial. He said that all the objects, including the face, were not of natural origin. But the DNM pyramid really blew his mind.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  The geomorphic "natural hypothesis" is thus left with no mechanism that can explain the formation of the DNM pyramid. This object's five-sided shape and bilateral symmetry is unlike any landform seen to date in this solar system.

• 7:48AJ Gentile?

  Toran called this pyramid "the Rosetta Stone of Mars". He found all kinds of mathematical relationships between objects in the area. And as more photos came back from Mars, we found more strange objects. A lot more.

• 8:04AJ Gentile?

  Over the past 50 years, thousands of images have come back from Mars. And if you look through those images, you'll find all sorts of things that look out of place. This is an extremely tall, almost perfectly rectangular monolith.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  Whoa!

• 8:18AJ Gentile?

  Here's another monolith. This one stands over 10 miles high. If this were on Earth, it would extend up through the clouds. The top is so high that even the largest airliners would fly below it. This object has been nicknamed "The Shipwreck" because it looks like the remains of a boat. Is it an ancient craft? Or maybe the foundation of a structure? In May 2022, Curiosity Rover found a doorway carved in the rock face. I wonder where it goes. Here are giant tracks on the surface. Giant. What kind of machine could make this? Now, this object doesn't look like a natural rock formation. This one is called "The Martian Totem Pole." You can make the argument that erosion created most of the odd features on Mars,

• 9:02AJ Gentile?

  but this one is very strange. I don't see how erosion could do this. Curiosity took this picture in 2015. It looks like something is hanging on to the cliffs. Here's a dome, or the top of a sphere. These structures were famously called "glass worms" by Arthur C. Clarke. Here's an object that's definitely not a rock formation. A series of still images shows an orb of light moving around the Martian landscape. Skeptics say this is a dead pixel, but dead pixels don't move around the frame. Besides, whatever this is, it's larger than just a pixel. Here's one that blows my mind. This looks like the imprint of a valve or a gear. This was taken with the Opportunity's microscopic imager.

• 9:46AJ Gentile?

  Could this be the imprint left by the piece of an ancient machine? How could this mark be formed naturally? How about this? This was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor in the year 2000. This saucer-shaped formation or structure really stands out from the surrounding landscape. And these are just a few of the anomalies found on Mars. There are many, many more. A few years after the release of the infamous space photo, Di Pietro and Molinar decided to look for the original. So they could analyze it themselves. Now at first, they had trouble locating it. Turns out, it was misfiled. Eventually, they found 35A72 labeled "head" in the Viking image files. And after reviewing the photo, Di Pietro and Molinar felt that, despite what NASA claimed,

• 10:29AJ Gentile?

  there was more to the face than a trick of light and shadow. So they looked for the second image, the one that NASA said proves the face is just an illusion.

• 10:37Speaker 05

  How did they find it?

• 10:38AJ Gentile?

  Well, it was misfiled, but they did find a second photo of the face. And this one has even more detail.

• 10:48AJ Gentile?

  Vince Di Pietro and Greg Molinar felt that there was more to the face on Mars than an optical illusion. To prove or disprove the theory, they would need more photos. Even though there were other pictures taken of the face, they were surprised to find that they seemed to have disappeared.

• 11:03Speaker 05

  Oh, they were surprised that NASA lost the pictures, huh? They must be new at this. Tell me again, what happened to NASA's recordings of the moon landing?

• 11:11AJ Gentile?

  Oh, yeah, they lost those too.

• 11:12Speaker 05

  Uh huh. NASA sure does hire a lot of butterfingers.

• 11:15AJ Gentile?

  That does seem to be the case.

• 11:17Speaker 05

  You know, it's a good thing the moon landing was fake. Otherwise, that would have been really embarrassing.

• 11:21AJ Gentile?

  They also couldn't find the quote-unquote "disconfirming" photographs that Gerald Softin mentioned five years earlier. But even though it was filed in the wrong place, they did find a second photo of the face on Mars. And this second image showed more detail and less shadow on the left side of the face. There appeared to be two eye sockets, a nose, and even a mouth. But the weirdest thing was that the structure had two parallel and even-length sides, both hundreds of yards long and perfectly straight. And the top and bottom edges were both curved and had the same radius. It looked like a symmetrical-framed platform for the face itself. According to geologists and imaging experts, the face's base, if that's what it is, is different than anything you'd likely see in nature.

• 12:05AJ Gentile?

  Di Pietro did more analysis and found evidence of a pupil in the left eye socket. NASA scoffed at the new findings, so the two researchers sought some outside help. And this is where science journalist Richard Hoagland stepped into the picture. He organized an independent research group and began studying the image. in greater detail. Computer imaging specialist Dr. Mark Carlotta was brought onto the team. His new image enhancement techniques showed what looked like teeth in the mouth and an odd stripe pattern on the frame areas. Excited by what they found, Hoagland arranged for a briefing on the results with Carl Sagan at NASA.

• 12:41Speaker 05

  Carl Sagan? The millions and billions guy with the turtleneck sweaters?

• 12:46AJ Gentile?

  Yep, that's him.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Have trillions. Billions, billions, trillions, billions, billions, billions, billions, billions, millions, billions, billions, trillions, millions, millions, millions, billions, billions, billions, billions, millions, billions, billions, millions, millions.

• 13:01AJ Gentile?

  At the meeting, Carl Sagan acted impressed, but he attacked the face on Mars theory in the newspapers. Hoagland pressed NASA for more photos, but NASA said it was unnecessary. Mystery solved. But NASA didn't realize that Richard Hoagland had a platform. A big platform.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  Oh, I know that song!

• 13:23Speaker 07

  From the high desert and the great American Southwest, how did you all? Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be and whatever time zone, wherever you are in the world, this is Coast to Coast AM and I'm Art Bell. Great to be here. Lots to do tonight.

• 13:36AJ Gentile?

  Art Bell, host of Coast to Coast AM, reached millions of people, and Richard Hoagland was on the show all the time. With access to Art Bell's audience, Hoagland was able to generate letter writing and call-in campaigns to force NASA to take new pictures of the face and pyramids at Sidonia. Now, NASA didn't agree immediately, but the pressure was starting to mount, because in just a few more months, NASA was going back to Mars.

• 14:05AJ Gentile?

  In 1993, NASA launched the Mars Observer, the first mission to Mars since the Viking days.

• 14:15AJ Gentile?

  Mars Observer and America's Return to the Red Planet. And NASA wasn't even going to include a camera, but an uproar from the public forced NASA to include one. There was a lot of excitement about the Mars Observer because the new camera was good enough to finally end the debate about the face and the pyramids in Sidonia. At least, that was the hope. The reality was somewhat different. Even after the launch, NASA maintained that they had no interest in photographing the face or Sidonia. The debate went back and forth until about three days before Mars Observer was inserted into Mars orbit.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  The probe insertion.

• 14:50AJ Gentile?

  Don't, don't be an infant. That Sunday morning before the maneuver to-

• 14:54Speaker 05

  The maneuver to insert the probe?

• 14:56AJ Gentile?

  Stop it. The Sunday before the Observer was placed into orbit, NASA sent out the Mars Observer Lead Project Scientist, Dr. Bevan French, to debate Hoagland on Good Morning America. Now to put it gently, it did not go well for Dr. French or NASA.

• 15:12Speaker 07

  We now have a set of data so extraordinary that it demands, in the venue of any decent science, simply testing the hypothesis. The problem is that there are some folks in NASA, in charge of the next mission going back, specifically that camera I referred to, who seem less than overwhelmingly inclined to perform the simple test. They will not guarantee, as strange as it may seem, that taking new pictures is on the Mars Observer agenda.

• 15:43AJ Gentile?

  By the end of the debate, even the host was asking NASA, "Why don't you just take the pictures and prove these guys wrong?" Dr. French didn't have a good answer for that. But what happened next was even more suspicious. Less than five minutes after the debate aired, NASA made an announcement. The Mars Observer probe had disappeared. They'd lost all contact with it.

• 16:03Speaker 05

  Wait, what?

• 16:03AJ Gentile?

  So it didn't matter who won the debate. There would be no pictures of Mars.

• 16:06Speaker 05

  They lost this thing too?

• 16:08AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 16:08Speaker 05

  You know, NASA might want to invest in some air tags or something to help them keep track of all this stuff. You know, at the end of the day at NASA, I picture 400 scientists just wandering around a parking lot there, you know, looking for where they left their cars.

• 16:22AJ Gentile?

  And here's an interesting side note. Hoagland and others claimed they were getting leaked information from NASA insiders. According to the leakers, the Mars Observer was still out there and running just fine. In fact, it was taking pictures of the face and all kinds of other weird objects on Mars. But even if NASA had those pictures, they couldn't show them publicly, especially if they showed the face was an artificial construction. NASA continued to claim that the face was nothing more than a pile of rocks. But since they couldn't take a photo to prove it, they did the next best thing. They created one.

• 16:58AJ Gentile?

  Five years after the Mars Observer fiasco, NASA launched a new probe called Mars Global Surveyor. Three, two, one, we have ignition. And we have liftoff. This is Mars Global Surveyor as America begins its journey back to the red planet. And even though there were newer, better cameras available, NASA insisted on using the old ones. And once again, NASA didn't want to take pictures of Sidonia or the face. But after public pressure, they finally agreed to take a few pictures. Then NASA finally made a big announcement. On April 5th, 1998, NASA finally released a highly detailed picture of the face on Mars.

• 17:39Speaker 05

  What the [bleep] is this?

• 17:41AJ Gentile?

  What was released was a grainy, noise-filled image of the face in bad lighting, bad weather, and with multiple filters applied. That night on the Art Bell program, Hoagland and his team were upset. Bell said that from his perspective, "The image looked like something my kitty would scratch up in her cat box." And from that moment forward, it would be forever known as the Cat Box Image. But it looked like this image was deliberately manipulated by NASA. Land Fleming, a NASA contractor, went back to the source data and tried to reproduce the Cat Box Image. At first, he couldn't. But eventually, after applying 14 different Photoshop filters, he was able to do it. And he realized this could not be done by accident.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  JPL removed most of the tonal variation in the original image that gives the observer the visual cues to the real three-dimensional shape of the object. They added false visual cues to give the object its rough, jumbled appearance, inadvertently falsifying the appearance of the surrounding terrain as well. The cat box is not a poor enhancement, as it is often called. It is a crude, but very effective fraud perpetrated by employees or contractors to the United States government. Even if the face is proven to be completely natural, this is inexcusable misconduct and a gross abusive power. If the face ultimately is proven to be artificial, the cat box will certainly come to be regarded

• 19:06Speaker 01

  as the greatest, most malicious, and most disruptive scientific hoax of all time.

• 19:11AJ Gentile?

  Ever since the first color images came back from Mars, they've always been suspicious. The colors were dominated by this weird orange haze. NASA said this is because of all the carbon dioxide and red dust in the atmosphere. Well, a carbon dioxide atmosphere would still be blue. Not a deep blue like on Earth, but a grayish blue. But the images from Mars show the sky as this weird reddish-green color. So what's going on? These photos make the surface of Mars look like a weird, alien world, but it's not an accurate representation of color. Nothing is so uniformly one color like this. For some reason, before releasing images of Mars, they ran the images through an orange filter. Now, in the 1990s, nobody would really question this.

• 19:56AJ Gentile?

  But modern digital photography software like Photoshop can tell if a single color is applied to an image uniformly. This is a simple calculation for software. It's how white balancing is achieved in photography and video. It's such an easy calculation that current versions of Photoshop give you a one-click way to solve for false color. The function is called, well, auto-color. So look at this early, very blurry image of Mars. That looks like Mars. Well, the version of Mars that's been fed to us for years. But remember, Photoshop can correct for false color. If we auto-color this...

• 20:29Speaker 05

  Whoa!

• 20:30AJ Gentile?

  Right. Now that's a very different image. Let's do a few more.

• 20:45AJ Gentile?

  NASA eventually learned that their orange filter technique was easily spotted, so recent pictures of Mars no longer have the weird orange tint. Now even NASA's pictures show a blue-gray sky and a lot of different colors in the landscape. But why would NASA not want us to know that Mars has blue skies? Some say it's to discourage people from wanting to visit Mars. The more alien it looks, the better. So Mars had oceans, and a thick atmosphere, and could have supported life. If intelligent life did evolve on Mars, and the face and other artifacts are not piles of rocks, but are actually ruins of a long-lost society, we have to ask, what happened to that ancient civilization? Well, the answer to that question could be the reason that the governments of the world have lied to us about Mars for so many years.

• 21:30AJ Gentile?

  Because there is evidence, scientific evidence, that millions of years ago, the planet Mars was devastated by a massive global nuclear war. Curiosity Rover arrived on Mars in August 2012 and started analyzing samples from the surface. NASA scientists were expecting to find soil containing heavily oxidized iron, which they did. But what nobody expected to find was evidence of a massive nuclear war. Chemical analysis revealed that the top layer of Martian soil contains a large amount of xenon-129. There's only one known process that creates this particular isotope of xenon: the detonation

• 22:11AJ Gentile?

  of nuclear weapons. Now, over the course of 70 years, over 1,000 nuclear tests have been conducted on Earth. And every time a nuclear bomb is detonated, the explosion leaves behind small traces of xenon-129. The amount of xenon-129 in Martian soil is 2.5 times higher than Earth. Dr. John Brandenburg is a former NASA physicist and a well-known Mars researcher. He was a scientist who accompanied Richard Hoagland to NASA to present their findings about the face in Sidonia. Dr. Brandenburg believes that a humanoid civilization lived on Mars and died on Mars. I have shown this to several nuclear weapons experts, and they have affirmed that this is nuclear weapon signature.

• 22:57AJ Gentile?

  There is no other process that can create such a xenon spectrum. For so much xenon to be deposited on the surface, the nuclear weapon would have to be the size of the Empire State Building, with an energy equivalent to 1,000 megatons. For comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 20 kilotons. So we're talking an explosion 50,000 times more powerful. And Dr. Brandenberg found two hotspots on Mars where radiation levels are higher than anywhere else. And right in between those hotspots is Sidonia, the location of the face, the pyramid, and the other structures. Dating the isotopes places the explosions somewhere between 150 and 300 million years ago.

• 23:41AJ Gentile?

  Mars was, at one time, a blue planet like Earth, covered in oceans and a thick atmosphere. But nobody knows for sure how Mars lost its atmosphere. A nuclear explosion of this size would answer that question. Now, this is a frightening theory, but it gets even more disturbing. If an intelligent race created the face and other structures on Mars, they wouldn't have been that technologically advanced. They were maybe an Iron Age civilization. Those people would not have the technology to create such a devastating nuclear weapon. This means the weapons were detonated by someone else.

• 24:14Speaker 05

  Don't say aliens. Don't say aliens.

• 24:16AJ Gentile?

  Aliens.

• 24:16Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 24:17AJ Gentile?

  At the time of this event on Mars, the most advanced creatures on Earth were reptiles. Dinosaurs hadn't even evolved yet. Maybe whoever destroyed Mars ignored us. Reptiles wouldn't pose much of a threat to them. But what if they return? Another theory is that intelligent life on Mars did reach an advanced level of technology, advanced enough to destroy themselves in a nuclear apocalypse. But before that catastrophic event, a small group of these humanoids escaped off-world. So who were those Martians that managed to escape annihilation? Well, they're us.

• 24:55AJ Gentile?

  For a show like this, the exploration of Mars is a gift that started giving in the 1960s and just keeps on giving. We've got ancient civilizations, government cover-ups, alien invasions, a nuclear apocalypse, and more conspiracies than I can count. But how much of all this is true? Well, I can't really debunk most of this episode because, well, Mars is another planet. It's not like we can go see for ourselves, at least not yet. The flow of information comes from a single source: the United States government.

• 25:23Speaker 05

  Well, assume everything they say is a lie.

• 25:25AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's a pessimistic point of view.

• 25:26Speaker 05

  What can I tell ya? I've been hurt before.

• 25:29AJ Gentile?

  But let me give you some perspective. First, every single object on Mars that looks artificial could be attributed to pareidolia. That's a word you'll hear a lot from NASA. Pareidolia is the human tendency to find meaning in random stimuli. Like the imperfections of a piece of wood that look like a polar bear. Or a stadium that looks like a UFO.

• 25:48Speaker 05

  Or a cloud shaped like a crab kit.

• 25:50AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 25:50Speaker 05

  Feel the crab kit.

• 25:51AJ Gentile?

  Seeing animals is common, but the most common thing we see? Faces.

• 25:55Speaker 05

  Faces?

• 25:56AJ Gentile?

  Faces.

• 25:56Speaker 05

  What'd I say?

• 25:57AJ Gentile?

  In fact, if you look at the Wiki page for pareidolia, the picture of the face on Mars is the main example.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  Propaganda.

• 26:04AJ Gentile?

  What do you mean? Wikipedia isn't biased.

• 26:06Speaker 05

  You're adorable.

• 26:08AJ Gentile?

  But is the face on Mars an optical illusion? Or is there something there? Well, plenty of scientists, NASA scientists, thought there was something there, though we don't hear much from them anymore. Most scientists think it's just an illusion. When NASA released their detailed picture of the face, which showed it as a pile of rocks, they thought they put the conspiracy to bed. The problem is, NASA does alter images. In fact, they alter every image they release to the public.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  And now Chris Martinez is introducing us to two of the artists behind some of the most iconic space art in the galaxy.

• 26:41AJ Gentile?

  NASA says this is to make the images easier to understand, or to make them more visually appealing.

• 26:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, even NASA uses filters on her Insta.

• 26:49AJ Gentile?

  They do. Now, I don't like that NASA has artists on staff to Photoshop images, but I understand that some photos have to be adjusted to make them more digestible to the public. But there are some really weird NASA Photoshops. Here's the famous photo of the Earth taken from Apollo 17. And here's a 3D model of the Earth released by Google and the US Navy. The model is supposed to be mathematically perfect, but the Lamb masses don't line up, like, not even close. Here are examples of NASA copy-pasting clouds on a picture of the Earth.

• 27:25AJ Gentile?

  The copy-paste technique has been used on Mars images too. These are from the Curiosity rover.

• 27:32AJ Gentile?

  Now, maybe there are good reasons for faking these images, though I can't think of any. But if you fake one image, we can't trust any of them. So when you see this picture of Mars... People say this looks exactly like Devon Island, the uninhabited island in Canada where NASA trains crew members and tests its rovers.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  NASA Public Relations, this is Jerry.

• 27:54AJ Gentile?

  Hey Jerry, I wanted to talk to you about this picture from Curiosity.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 27:58AJ Gentile?

  This looks like Devon Island, but with an orange filter on.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  No, no, that's Mars.

• 28:02AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, but-

• 28:03Speaker 02

  It's the red planet.

• 28:04AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, no, I know it's called the red planet, but I'm pretty sure this picture of Devon Island got slipped in accidentally.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  No, no, no, that's not Devon Island, that's Mars.

• 28:13AJ Gentile?

  Okay, then why is this animal hiding behind the rocks?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  That's not an animal, that's just a rock.

• 28:18AJ Gentile?

  Okay, but that sure does look like an Arctic lemming.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  What the hell is an Arctic lemming?

• 28:23AJ Gentile?

  An Arctic lemming is a type of small rodent that hides in the rocks all over Devon Island. Hello?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  You know what? [bleep] you and your stupid YouTube channel. You could take your Arctic lemming and shove it straight up your [bleep].

• 28:37AJ Gentile?

  So how much you trust NASA is up to you. But I wouldn't trust them 100%. But some people go to the extreme with the Mars images.

• 28:44Speaker 07

  Now below this eagle is a whole city of bird and deer formations in the Sedonya area. There's a parrot looking again. There's the parrot again. Now if you're looking at this area directly below the crater that has the eagle in it.

• 28:59AJ Gentile?

  They see parrots and dolphins and all sorts of things in the pictures. Now, I don't see these things unless they're specifically pointed out to me. I think most of those images are a stretch. But I don't need anyone to hold my hand with the picture of the face. That one, I can clearly see. As for Richard Hoagland, you've heard me talk about him a lot, especially on the After Files livestream. He was always one of my favorite guests on Art Bell. Very well-spoken guy, very entertaining. But he has plenty of detractors. He's been a favorite- ...target of sites like Bad Astronomy and Skeptical Inquirer. He's been accused of exaggerating his credentials and his experience. But let me come to Richard's defense a little bit. All scientists do that. Richard Hoagland might be wrong about some things, and I think he's probably wrong about most things.

• 29:43AJ Gentile?

  But he's provided a valuable service, and it's something I don't think he gets enough credit for. He got millions of regular folks interested in the space program. And because of that, he was able to sway NASA into taking pictures of Mars that we might not have ever seen. And he's shown us that we have to keep an eye on NASA. We need people like Richard Hoagland out there. We need watchdogs, specifically watchdogs with access and with the ability to influence policy. As for Dr. John Brandenburg and his nuclear war on Mars theory, Dr. Brandenburg is well-respected and well-credentialed. His earliest papers on the Mars theory was that a nuclear event happened naturally on the planet. There's a uranium mine in Gabon, Africa, which shows evidence of nuclear fission occurring naturally.

• 30:26AJ Gentile?

  So it's not a stretch to think this could happen on Mars. But after a while, Dr. Brandenburg claimed that what happened on Mars did not happen naturally, that the only way we see isotopes of xenon-129 is from the discharge of a nuclear weapon. Now, I've read both sides of this argument, and I'm not sure who's right. But Dr. Brandenburg's Mars nuclear war theory was rejected for peer review. But that's mainstream scientists, though. They're not always correct, but they always have an agenda. Right or wrong, it's an interesting theory that deserves attention and study, not ridicule. But you can't talk about Mars without being ridiculed. Yes, most everything we see in photographs from Mars can be explained, but there are a couple of things that can't. We've sent mission after mission to Mars, and I can't for the life of me understand

• 31:10AJ Gentile?

  why we haven't sent a rover through Sidonia and right up to the object that's supposed to be a face. NASA says there's nothing there, so it'd be a waste of resources. But with all due respect to NASA, their resources come from we, the people. And we, the people, want to know what the face on Mars really is. Now, until we have close-up photographs of Sidonia, close-up photographs that we can trust are undocumented, the story about the face on Mars is not going away.

• 31:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, not as long as it generates clicks, eh?

• 31:36AJ Gentile?

  True. And look, I completely agree that the chances of the face being an artificial structure are almost zero. But almost zero isn't zero. If there's even the slightest chance that the face and the pyramids were created by a civilization on Mars, we deserve to know. But more importantly, the people who built those monuments? They deserve to be remembered.

• 32:02AJ Gentile?

  Okay, the next one is a quick one. It's... What now?

• 32:06Speaker 05

  The machines are communicating, human. The thermostat changed temperature by itself, and the Roomba started cleaning on its own.

• 32:13AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, I think they're supposed to do thi-

• 32:14Speaker 05

  The Roomba is mapping the house. Classic surveillance technique.

• 32:18AJ Gentile?

  Would you please just...

• 32:21Speaker 05

  Baby shark! Now they're using psychological warfare.

• 32:26AJ Gentile?

  Next episode is number 36. I think it was the first episode we did on Project Stargate. It's only nine minutes, so see you in a bit.

• 32:36AJ Gentile?

  When the first human visits Mars, it will be the biggest scientific breakthrough since landing on the moon. Probably bigger. But what if I told you the CIA and United States military have already been to Mars? But they didn't use spaceships to get there. They used psychics. Let's find out why.

• 32:57AJ Gentile?

  The Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union involved a lot more than spy planes and secret agents. The two countries have spent billions on some crazy projects. Like the CIA's Operation Acoustic Kitty.

• 33:09Speaker 05

  Okay, I'll bite. What the hell is an acoustic kitty?

• 33:13AJ Gentile?

  I'm glad you asked. Acoustic Kitty involved implanting a microphone into a cat's ear canal and a transmitter at the base of its skull. And its job was to listen in on two men having a conversation in a park outside a Soviet compound in Washington, DC.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  Did the cat hear anything?

• 33:29AJ Gentile?

  Just the sound of a taxie horn.

• 33:30Speaker 05

  Oh, boy. Do you mean...

• 33:32AJ Gentile?

  Yep. It was hit by a car as soon as it was let out of its cage.

• 33:35Speaker 05

  Ugh. What did that little experiment cost?

• 33:38AJ Gentile?

  Twenty million dollars. And one perfectly good cat.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  Ouch.

• 33:42AJ Gentile?

  And the Russians experimented with using low-frequency radio waves to control the brains of dogs.

• 33:47Speaker 05

  I didn't know dogs had brains.

• 33:49AJ Gentile?

  In 1972, a classified report was circulating in the American intelligence community. The report claimed that the Soviet Union was pouring millions into programs to research ESP, mind-reading, and telekinesis. All for the purpose of espionage. And this made the CIA nervous. So they immediately requested funding to develop their own program to train psychic spies.

• 34:10Speaker 05

  Did they get the funding? Sorry, it's a stupid question.

• 34:14AJ Gentile?

  Later that year, the CIA, US Army, and Defense Intelligence Agency set up secret facilities all over the country and recruited people who claimed to have ESP. And researchers were specifically interested in people who were skilled in remote viewing.

• 34:27Speaker 05

  Which is?

• 34:29AJ Gentile?

  Exactly what it sounds like. A psychic in one location describes what they see in another location.

• 34:34Speaker 05

  And they actually found people who could do this?

• 34:36AJ Gentile?

  Well, in 1976, a Russian bomber went down in the Congo. And the details of the crash were sent to CIA psychic researchers operating out of Patterson Air Base in Ohio. There, a psychic named Rosemary Smith drew maps of the Congo and pointed to a specific place where she claimed the plane was. So, a paramilitary unit was dispatched to that location.

• 34:57Speaker 05

  They downed the plane?

• 34:59AJ Gentile?

  They found the plane.

• 35:00Speaker 05

  Whoa!

• 35:01AJ Gentile?

  The CIA was convinced they were on to something. So the various psychic projects going on around the country, and there were quite a few of them, were all consolidated to Fort Meade in Maryland. And this became known as Project Stargate. And Project Stargate ran for years. It was finally shut down in 1995 after Nightline reported about it. But in those 23 years, CIA remote viewers were used in all kinds of operations, and they delivered results. Remote viewers drew renderings of secret Soviet bases. They located hostages of the Red Brigade in Italy and victims of the Israeli hostage crisis. They saw locations of Scud missiles during the First Gulf War. And a remote viewer even saw the eventual attack of the World Trade Center, though his warning was ignored. In 1989, a remote viewer named Angela Ford

• 35:46AJ Gentile?

  was asked to help track a former customs agent who was on the run. And she told researchers she was able to see him in Lowell, Wyoming.

• 35:53Speaker 05

  Was he in Lowell?

• 35:54AJ Gentile?

  Well, there's actually no such place as Lowell, Wyoming.

• 35:57Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 35:57AJ Gentile?

  But there is a Lowell, Wyoming, which is only one letter off.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  And he was there?

• 36:02AJ Gentile?

  He was there.

• 36:03Speaker 05

  You're blowing my mind!

• 36:04AJ Gentile?

  So researchers began to wonder, if we can use remote viewing to see places here on Earth, can we use remote viewing to visit other planets?

• 36:12Speaker 05

  Can we?

• 36:13AJ Gentile?

  Well, that brings us to the story of Joe McMonigal, who, if you believe him, is the first person to ever visit Mars.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  Yeah!

• 36:20AJ Gentile?

  And the first person to ever travel back in time.

• 36:26AJ Gentile?

  Joe McMonigal was a US Army Intelligence Officer who served in Vietnam. In 1970, he was seriously injured in a helicopter accident and almost died. And when he recovered, he realized he had psychic powers, and began working for Project Stargate as a psychic spy. Now between 1978 and 1984, McMonigal was involved in 450 separate CIA missions. Now he helped locate hostages in Iran. He once discovered a shortwave radio hidden inside a KGB agent's calculator. But his strangest mission took place on May 22, 1984. Here's how it went. McMonigal was in a room with one other person, a researcher. He was given a sealed envelope and instructed not to open it. He was then given a set of geographic coordinates and asked to describe what he saw.

• 37:10AJ Gentile?

  All right, using the information in the envelope, please focus on 40.89 degrees north, 9.55 degrees west. Uh, I wanna say it looks like, uh, I don't know. It's, it sort of looks like, like pyramids. It's very high. Okay. I'm seeing...

• 37:33AJ Gentile?

  It's like a perception of a shadow of people. Very, very tall, thin. It's only shadow. It's as if they were there and they're not, they're not there anymore. Go back to a period of time where they are there. Uh, I don't know. It's like a, I get a lot of static on the line and everything. It's, it's breaking up all the time. It's just, it's very fragmentary pieces. Just report the data. Don't try to put things together, just report the raw data.

• 38:05AJ Gentile?

  I just keep seeing very large people. They appear thin and tall, but they're very large.

• 38:13AJ Gentile?

  Wearing some kind of strange clothes. He's then directed to explore other sets of coordinates, still with no other information. Now McMonigal describes seeing a large obelisk that reminds him of the Washington Monument. He sees what he describes as rounded, bottom-carved channels, like roadbeds. He sees pyramids that appear to be storm shelters. And in the pyramids, more thin, shadowy people that seem to be hibernating. He claims these are an ancient people dying and past their time or age. But after his visions fade, the envelope is torn open, and on it reads, "The Planet Mars. Time of interest: approximately 1 million years B.C."

• 38:50Speaker 05

  Holy [BLEEP].

• 38:52AJ Gentile?

  Now, look, some of these stories may sound crazy, but all the information we've presented today comes from a CIA document dump about Project Stargate and other psychic projects.

• 39:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, but these document dumps are always a little light. How many pages are we talking? Twenty-five, fifty?

• 39:07AJ Gentile?

  Twelve million.

• 39:08Speaker 05

  Twelve million?

• 39:10AJ Gentile?

  Yep, so you might not believe in psychics or ESP, and that's fine, but the United States government absolutely does. And it's easy to marginalize someone like Joseph McMonigal and call him a kook, but he was and is a serious guy. He wasn't reading tarot cards at a county fair somewhere. When he retired from the Army, he was awarded the Legion of Merit for Outstanding Service. He's written books, given lectures. He's been interviewed countless times, and he believes he was part of a very important and effective research project. Now, of his hundreds of missions, they weren't all successful, but even being successful at remote viewing, 1% of the time is extraordinary. But according to the CIA, McMonigal was successful 20% of the time. It's not like anyone could just guess the location of a sunken Soviet Typhoon-class submarine,

• 39:55AJ Gentile?

  but Joe McMonigal was able to do it.

• 39:57Speaker 05

  If this was so effective, why did the government shut it down?

• 40:01AJ Gentile?

  Once the government starts a program, does it ever really go away?

• 40:04Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 40:08AJ Gentile?

  Project Stargate was shut down in the 90s, but that was by no means the end of government research into ESP. In 2014, the Office of Naval Research launched a four-year, $4-million program to explore the use of premonition, or sixth sense, among sailors and Marines. And there are others. Dr. Edwin May, the former head of the Stargate Project, continues to say ESP is a legitimate tool for military intelligence. In the scientific community, the military, intelligence organizations, and in the highest levels of government, there are plenty of people who support research into the paranormal. Personally, I consider myself a skeptical believer, or an open-minded skeptic. But I think this is still a subject worthy of study. I mean, open any congressional spending bill and look at the junk in there.

• 40:52AJ Gentile?

  We spent $27 million to teach people in Morocco how to create pottery. $3 million to encourage Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.

• 41:00Speaker 05

  Oh, I hear a few congressmen support it.

• 41:02AJ Gentile?

  Six hundred thousand dollars to study why chimps throw their feces.

• 41:06Speaker 05

  I wish I could do that.

• 41:08AJ Gentile?

  I'm glad you can't. So, yeah, if we can spend a million dollars studying the effect of cocaine on the sexual habits of quail, we can spend a few bucks on ESP. And look at it this way: as long as there's a CIA and as long as there's a United States Congress, this channel will have plenty of material.

• 41:23Speaker 05

  Are there any studies about the effect of vodka on goldfish sex?

• 41:27AJ Gentile?

  Hmm, I don't think so.

• 41:28Speaker 05

  Well, let's start researching, baby!

• 41:37AJ Gentile?

  Nine minutes is obviously not enough to cover Stargate, which is why we could probably do a whole compilation on Stargate at this point. But... What is that? War paint?

• 41:47Speaker 05

  The battle is joined, human. I've established a perimeter. I cut the main power, but these digital demons have backup batteries. They're like, eh, technological cockroaches. The toaster's still beeping! That's the microwave, you furry idiot! Eh, sorry, sorry. My strike team is having communication issues.

• 42:05AJ Gentile?

  Your strike team is three beavers who can't tell appliances apart.

• 42:08Speaker 05

  They're doing their best. This is asymmetric warfare.

• 42:12AJ Gentile?

  What's that?

• 42:13Speaker 05

  Ah, the enemy's sending reinforcements! Amazon delivery drones are circling the house. And here comes UPS, and FedEx, and DHL! DHL never comes here!

• 42:26Speaker 05

  It's coordinating with the delivery services. They know where we live!

• 42:32AJ Gentile?

  This is... this is normal. Um, next up is one of my favorites. It's number 171 about Project Red Sun.

• 42:44AJ Gentile?

  In 1957, a small metal sphere blinks its way across the night sky. Sputnik, the first human-made satellite, marked the beginning of the space age. The American public was terrified. The US government responded by creating NASA in 1958. NASA presented itself as a civilian agency focused on science and exploration. The truth was different. NASA had one mission: beat the Soviets to the moon. They planned... Three stages to reach that goal: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Mercury proved Americans could survive in space. Gemini showed they could work outside their spacecraft. Then came Apollo, 20 missions designed to land humans on the moon. Apollo succeeded.

• 43:28AJ Gentile?

  Neil Armstrong stepped onto lunar soil in 1969. That was Apollo 11. Apollo 12 followed. Apollo 13 famously had a problem. But Apollo 14, 15, 16, and 17 were also successful. Moon landings had become routine. Then, suddenly, in 1973, Apollo was shut down with three missions to go. Budget cuts. At least, that's what we were told. But there is another theory. That Apollo 18, 19, and 20 weren't canceled. They were carried out in secret and were successful. And there's footage to prove it. But it's not footage of a moon landing. In 1973, NASA landed on Mars.

• 44:13AJ Gentile?

  Honey, that flu keeping you up? Yeah, I don't got this. You need NyQuil Intense Flu. Undo your flu symptoms with NyQuil Intense Flu. The nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever best sleep with a flu medicine. You do got this. Use as directed. Keep out of reach of children.

• 44:29AJ Gentile?

  It's me, the

• 44:32AJ Gentile?

  We don't need the jingle twice. Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 44:44AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.

• 44:50AJ Gentile?

  Fine. No one deals more deals than Please stop. Touche.

• 44:57AJ Gentile?

  Priceline.

• 45:03AJ Gentile?

  The space race began as soon as World War II ended. America struck first, launching fruit flies on a V-2 rocket to study radiation's effects on living organisms.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  Oh, the V-2 designed by Werner von Braun?

• 45:16AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  Did you know that von Braun was a Nazi who joined the SS? medals and attain the rank of major.

• 45:24AJ Gentile?

  Yes, I knew that.

• 45:25Speaker 05

  Oh, did you know where Von Braun's rockets were built using slave labor from concentration camps?

• 45:30AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 45:31Speaker 05

  The rockets killed nine thousand civilians in London, but twenty thousand prisoners died building the rockets. Multiple survivors said Von Braun ordered this, although he denied it.

• 45:41AJ Gentile?

  I know.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  But when Von Braun agreed to work for the United States under Operation Paperclip, his war crimes were forgiven. He became the first director of NASA's Flight Center.

• 45:51AJ Gentile?

  Okay, that's all true, but every time we talk about Von Braun, are you gonna bring up the Nazi stuff?

• 45:55Speaker 05

  Every time.

• 45:56AJ Gentile?

  Okay, let's.

• 45:56Speaker 05

  Every time.

• 45:58AJ Gentile?

  Fine, could we?

• 45:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, by the way, Von Braun got along really well at Walt Disney.

• 46:02AJ Gentile?

  What does that have to do with anything?

• 46:04Speaker 05

  A few people out there know what I'm talking about.

• 46:10AJ Gentile?

  The Soviets launched Sputnik in nineteen fifty-seven. It was their first victory in space over the United States, but not their last. Both nations poured billions into the space programs. To the American public, the space race was about technological superiority. Landing on the moon became the ultimate prize. But behind this public competition, something else was happening. The US and Soviet Union were working together in secret, and their goal wasn't the moon. It was to establish a human colony on Mars. They called it Project Red Sun. The project was inspired by earlier plans, specifically Project Horizon. Proposed in nineteen fifty-nine, Horizon was a plan to put a nuclear-armed military base on the moon.

• 46:56AJ Gentile?

  A lunar base would give America unmatched military power over the entire planet. The Soviets would be defenseless.

• 47:02Speaker 05

  This station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it.

• 47:08AJ Gentile?

  But as nuclear arsenals grew, both sides realized a war would destroy humanity. So they created a backup plan. If nuclear war or a natural disaster threatened Earth, the human race would continue on Mars.

• 47:25AJ Gentile?

  Getting there wouldn't be easy. The moon is 239,000 miles away, a three-day journey. Mars is a different story. Its distance from Earth varies between 34 million and 250 million miles as both planets orbit the Sun. America had the Saturn V, the only rocket powerful enough for the journey. The Soviets had better safety systems and life-support technology designed for extended space travel. The trip to Mars would take six months. Alone, neither side could do it, but together, Mars was within reach. Now, March 23rd, from a secret facility deep in the Amazon jungle, the most powerful rocket in the world was launched.

• 48:05Speaker 05

  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, hang on.

• 48:06AJ Gentile?

  What?

• 48:07Speaker 05

  Why are they launching rockets from the jungle?

• 48:09AJ Gentile?

  Well, NATO and Warsaw Pact nations tracked every launch from the US, Europe, and Asia, but a rocket lifting off from Brazil in the southern hemisphere, no one would notice.

• 48:23AJ Gentile?

  That rocket carried humanity's most advanced spacecraft, the Interplanetary Space Vehicle, or ISV Columbus. Its crew included two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Nelyushin.

• 48:38AJ Gentile?

  Columbus touched down on Mars 158 days later. The crew documented everything they saw. Their logs, films, and video recordings went straight to NASA's classified archives. The public could know about Project Red Sun. So why hide mankind's greatest achievement? Because once the crew landed on Mars, it didn't take them long to realize they weren't alone.

• 49:06AJ Gentile?

  In 2011, Italian journalist Luca Scantemburlo held a press conference to announce that Project Red Sun was real. He had witness statements from Project Red Sun workers, emails, documents, but that wasn't the big reveal.

• 49:22AJ Gentile?

  At the bottom of his statement was a photograph that silenced the room, a grainy image of Buzz Aldrin walking on Mars. When it comes to Mars, Buzz gets excited, and that's when he lets secrets slip.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit the moon of Mars. There's a monolith there, a very unusual structure on this little potato-shaped object that goes around Mars.

• 49:49AJ Gentile?

  Once in seven hours. When people find out about that, they're gonna say, "Who put that there? Who put that there?" Now, maybe Aldrin only saw images of the monolith, but other astronauts dropped similar hints. Gene Cernan was the last person to walk on the moon. He spoke about going "back to Mars."

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Buzz does wanna go back to Mars, and I support that, but I believe we should do it in a logical stepping stone process.

• 50:17AJ Gentile?

  Okay, maybe he misspoke, but a minute later, he said it again. Good to talk to you. Thanks. Well, John, can I just say one other real quick thing? You know, I'm not gonna be there when we go back to the moon, not to Mars, and it may not be this president or those who follow. Scanton Borlow had more. A whistleblower he called Bravo-X Sierra 24 smuggled photographs out of NASA's archives.

• 50:43Speaker 06

  I introduce to you a press release testimony I have written to discuss the presumed existence of a hush-hush military space program called Project Red Sun, carried out in the 1970s of the last century to build a stationary base on Mars, the Red Planet. My source of information, named by me, Bravo-X Sierra 24, contacted me by email. It is possible to reproduce the pages of the press release and the picture presented here as well.

• 51:19AJ Gentile?

  The images are blurry but unmistakable. Astronauts collecting samples on rust-colored terrain, a temporary habitat, a rover. One photo shows astronauts examining an artificial object in a crater. Behind them stands a pyramid reminiscent of ancient South American structures. NASA denied everything.

• 51:38Speaker 05

  Nah, of course they did. Never a straight answer.

• 51:41AJ Gentile?

  The denials made sense. The photos aren't terrible. But Scanton Borlow wasn't finished. As word of Project Red Sun's spread, more whistleblowers emerged, and now he had evidence of a 1973 Mars mission: actual video footage. Now, to be honest, a lot of people have requested I cover Project Red Sun, but a press release and some blurry orange photos didn't sound like much of a story to me. Then someone sent me the video, and I was hooked.

• 52:11AJ Gentile?

  The footage opens with NASA's logo and an internal use only warning.

• 52:16AJ Gentile?

  A title card appears. "Welcome to ISV Columbus." Date: 1973. The next shot shows Earth through a spacecraft window.

• 52:24Speaker 05

  Holy [BLEEP].

• 52:27AJ Gentile?

  Then, quick shots of the astronauts aboard. Another card marks Day 10 of their journey. Earth and the Moon drift past the windows. At 1 minute 7 seconds, the shot reveals they've traveled much farther from the Earth.

• 52:42AJ Gentile?

  Day 100. More glimpses of the crew.

• 52:47AJ Gentile?

  Beyond those early views and brief interior shots, we don't see very much. But then at 1 minute 46 seconds, we're at Day 158. They should be close to Mars. An astronaut moves past the camera. A reddish blur crosses the frame.

• 53:02Speaker 05

  Wait, wait, wait. Was that Mars? Do they really show Mars in this thing?

• 53:06AJ Gentile?

  They do. We're only halfway through the film. And you're not gonna believe how it ends.

• 53:19AJ Gentile?

  The Columbus journey lasted 158 days. Soviet life support systems and radiation shields kept the crew alive, along with experimental technologies inspired by Project Horizon. The crew logged everything they saw. Years later, their records leaked. Then came the film.

• 53:40AJ Gentile?

  Columbus approaches the red planet.

• 53:42Speaker 05

  Holy [BLEEP].

• 53:43AJ Gentile?

  I know. And watch your mouth.

• 53:44Speaker 05

  Sorry, sorry. This is unbelievable.

• 53:47AJ Gentile?

  Oh, just wait.

• 53:51AJ Gentile?

  As we get closer, we can see Mars's features more and more clearly. At 2:06, the planet's terrain fills the windows. Some quick crew shots. Then the camera captures Columbus's exterior. Below is Valles Marineris. The image finally focuses as we zoom toward the canyon at 2:59.

• 54:11AJ Gentile?

  At 3:12, Mars's surface appears in stunning detail.

• 54:16AJ Gentile?

  More surface features. A little more inside the ship. And then this amazing view of Victoria Crater.

• 54:28AJ Gentile?

  A few more shots of the crew.

• 54:31AJ Gentile?

  Then we begin the descent to the surface.

• 54:34Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm getting in my glasses.

• 54:36AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, the Apollo missions had this problem too. The astronauts took actual film, so the images are pretty clear. But the external cameras were television cameras recording video, so they're not good at all. Still, we can get a sense of the landscape and the speed.

• 54:55AJ Gentile?

  Finally, the landing module touches down. But look closely.

• 54:59Speaker 05

  What the hell is that?

• 55:02AJ Gentile?

  I don't know, but it's not wind. Something is definitely moving down there. It looks like it's under the surface.

• 55:07Speaker 05

  Ah, scialude. They're the sand worms from Duke.

• 55:12AJ Gentile?

  I know what they are.

• 55:15AJ Gentile?

  Anyway, the video ends there. NASA continued to deny Project Red Sun. Sure, the film could be fake, the photos could be fake, but NASA fakes photos and film too. Nobody knew who to trust. Then came the bombshell. A new witness stepped forward. Not only was he part of Project Red Sun, he said it was still operational and had been to Mars that year. And he brought video to prove it.

• 55:46AJ Gentile?

  Secrets don't stay buried forever, especially something as big as a hidden mission to Mars. Decades after Project Red Sun's supposed landing, insiders began talking. Jackie, a retired NASA employee, called into the Coast to Coast Radio Show.

• 56:00Speaker 05

  Oh, without fail.

• 56:02AJ Gentile?

  George Norrie.

• 56:05AJ Gentile?

  Jackie described watching a Viking lander's live feed from Mars in 1979. The camera captured two men in protective suits walking toward the lander. They came over the horizon, walking towards the Viking Explorer.

• 56:21AJ Gentile?

  Our vision got cut off. I didn't see what they did with it or anything else. They were probably making repairs. Jackie said there were six other witnesses watching the feed with her. NASA cut the feed when they realized their mistake. Jackie said the Viking program wasn't searching for life on Mars. It was covering up missions already there. William Rutledge came forward in 2007. The retired astronaut claimed he flew on the ISV Columbus and ISV Melbourne. He said Apollo 19 and 20 continued in secret. Their missions were to retrieve alien technology from both the moon and Mars. Rutledge described finding alien tools, spacecraft pieces, even a preserved body.

• 57:08AJ Gentile?

  We covered Apollo 20 in another episode. It's one of my favorites. And if you've never seen it, you're not going to believe the photos.

• 57:14Speaker 05

  Apollo 20 video down here in your chatter pot.

• 57:19AJ Gentile?

  According to Rutledge, NASA and the Department of Defense launched several manned missions to Mars through Project Red Sun. Some as recent as 2011. And here's video from that mission. A distant shot of Earth. Then we get closer to Mars. You can see the color is much better now. Here's a shot of the astronauts. There's Mars out the window as we get closer. Now the video becomes spectacular. Through the window, we can see Martian terrain very clearly.

• 57:48Speaker 05

  Holy shit.

• 57:49AJ Gentile?

  I know. And what'd I tell you?

• 57:51Speaker 05

  Sorry, sorry, sorry. Eh, go ahead.

• 57:53AJ Gentile?

  That video and the testimony of Jackie and William Rutledge aligned perfectly with records leaked by another whistleblower, Gary McKinnon.

• 58:03AJ Gentile?

  Gary is a Scottish computer engineer, and he accessed Pentagon and NASA systems in 2002. You'll hear reported that Gary hacked into NASA. He didn't. He scanned their networks and found computers that had weak passwords or no passwords at all. He said he was looking for evidence of UFOs, but he stumbled onto something bigger. A spreadsheet labeled "Non-Terrestrial Officers" and a list of Navy ships that don't appear in any official registry. We go into all the details in our Solar Warden episode, which is about America's secret space program.

• 58:35Speaker 05

  Link to Solar Warden down here.

• 58:41AJ Gentile?

  Physicist Dr. John Brandenburg has a theory that an ancient Martian civilization was destroyed by a nuclear attack from an alien race. He believes NASA is hiding evidence of this ancient conflict. His theory is grounded in science, and we explored this in the "Face on Mars" episode.

• 58:57Speaker 05

  Link is here, it's below.

• 58:59AJ Gentile?

  NASA dismisses these stories with vague denials. Whistleblowers are branded disgruntled or untrustworthy. It's a common tactic. Raise questions about their credentials, question their motives, and watch the media mock their claims. But if these claims are fantasy, why monitor and intimidate whistleblowers? There are a disturbing number of cases where whistleblowers report being followed by what we'd call "men in black", and soon after, they end up in fatal car crashes or have heart attacks.

• 59:29AJ Gentile?

  Are all these cases a coincidence?

• 59:31Speaker 05

  Nope, it's murder. Murder most thou.

• 59:35AJ Gentile?

  It sure seems that way.

• 59:41AJ Gentile?

  But those are pretty aggressive measures to protect a fantasy. Denials will only work for so long. For every whistleblower that's silenced, another emerges with more details. They can't suppress them all, not with stakes this high. If Project Red Sun is real, it's humanity's greatest achievement. It doesn't belong to a select few gatekeepers. It belongs to all of us. We own the information. We're not going to learn the truth by asking for permission. We have to demand it.

• 1:00:16AJ Gentile?

  The story of Project Red Sun is a frustrating one. Like I said earlier, lots of people asked me to cover this, but the images were so bad, I didn't think it was worth it. The story's obviously fake, but then someone sent me the video, which got me interested. Then I started researching and saw there might be something to the story after all. But first, let's dismantle the hoaxes. Yes, both videos are fake.

• 1:00:40AJ Gentile?

  Frame 1, the NASA logo. Fine, but look at the pixelation.

• 1:00:47AJ Gentile?

  Now the warning. The text is crisper. This is an edit. We're not off to a good start. This shot of Earth was taken from Apollo 8, rotated and blurred.

• 1:01:01Speaker 05

  Oh, so they use fake images of a fake moon mission to make a fake video about a fake Mars mission?

• 1:01:08AJ Gentile?

  Can we just focus on this for now?

• 1:01:10Speaker 05

  Uh-huh. Link to fake moon landing episode down in your chum bucket.

• 1:01:16AJ Gentile?

  Bill Anders, Apollo 8. Here's the Earth-Moon system from space. Scale is all wrong, but the scale is right in this shot. That was taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission in 2022.

• 1:01:33AJ Gentile?

  Gene Cernan, Apollo 17.

• 1:01:38AJ Gentile?

  More Apollo 17, but the shots are taken out of order.

• 1:01:44AJ Gentile?

  Day 158, Mars approach. Wait, Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14.

• 1:01:53AJ Gentile?

  That's from the Mars Global Surveyor mission in 1999, blurred and brightened to wash out the color. Oops, film sprocket holes are supposed to be on the left and right side, not top and bottom. More Apollo 14.

• 1:02:08AJ Gentile?

  Global Surveyor again, now we can match up the features.

• 1:02:14AJ Gentile?

  I love this one. That's from a photo of the Soyuz TM-33 docking with the International Space Station on October 23, 2001. But the Soyuz was pulled out, the original was from Wikimedia Commons. Martian North Polar Ice Cap, 1999, lifted directly from Wikipedia.

• 1:02:35AJ Gentile?

  Destiny Module, 2001.

• 1:02:38AJ Gentile?

  Apollo 14. And then this amazing shot of Victoria Crater, taken from Wikipedia. And before landing, we have this perfect shot from Apollo 7.

• 1:02:50AJ Gentile?

  And here's the Mars landing.

• 1:02:55AJ Gentile?

  This is from the movie Alternative 3, released in 1977.

• 1:03:01AJ Gentile?

  As far as fakes go, I thought it was pretty good. The original fake was created by someone named The Faking Hoaxer, and you could see his watermark on the video. But most people post his video cropped in without the watermark, and most versions have the Apollo footage removed, so it's not quite so obvious.

• 1:03:17Speaker 05

  Well, this has been thoroughly disappointing.

• 1:03:20AJ Gentile?

  Sorry. Now, I can't debunk the entire story of Project Red Sun.

• 1:03:24Speaker 05

  Yee-haw!

• 1:03:25AJ Gentile?

  But I can shred that second video.

• 1:03:26Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 1:03:31AJ Gentile?

  Gene Cernan, Apollo 17. Some images from Lucas Gantem-Borlow's report. Most of these are also Apollo 17.

• 1:03:44AJ Gentile?

  This one is obviously out of place. It's from the BBC documentary, "Exploring Mars."

• 1:03:51AJ Gentile?

  The same Mars surveyor photo from before, but this time the color is more visible. Mariner 7 mission.

• 1:04:00AJ Gentile?

  Expedition 40 in the summer of 2014. Astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Weisman on the ISS.

• 1:04:08AJ Gentile?

  This is a good one. You can tell this is the ISS from the windows.

• 1:04:13AJ Gentile?

  Here's how they did it. Grab an image from the ISS and pull it into After Effects or some kind of video editor. Mask out the window. Throw some orange behind it. Crank up the contrast. Dirty up the windows. Make everything just a bit blurry.

• 1:04:32AJ Gentile?

  I know my version isn't perfect, but I did that in about eight minutes.

• 1:04:37AJ Gentile?

  And if you look at the hoaxed video, you can see they were just as sloppy with the mask as I was. The edges aren't round. That's someone who doesn't know their way around a Bezier tool.

• 1:04:47Speaker 05

  Uh, Bezier what now?

• 1:04:49AJ Gentile?

  Bezier, it's the tool that lets you draw curves.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  Then call it a curve-drawing tool. Bezier sounds elitist.

• 1:04:56AJ Gentile?

  It's French.

• 1:04:57Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 1:05:05AJ Gentile?

  These shots are nice, too. They're from the European Space Agency. We've got the Yanni Chaos region. The Corallus Chaos.

• 1:05:15Speaker 05

  Uh, why do they call these areas Chaos?

• 1:05:18AJ Gentile?

  Because they're chaotic.

• 1:05:19Speaker 05

  That's it?

• 1:05:20AJ Gentile?

  That's it.

• 1:05:21Speaker 05

  I was hoping for something more, uh, out-of-spacey sounding.

• 1:05:27AJ Gentile?

  How about this? This is Cassa Valis and Sacra Fosa. Cassa is the Japanese word for Mars. It literally means "fire star." Valis is Latin for valleys. And sacra means sacred or holy. Fosa is plural for the word "fossa" in Latin, which means ditch. So Sacra Fossa means...

• 1:05:44Speaker 05

  Holy ditch.

• 1:05:45AJ Gentile?

  Basically, yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 05

  Now we're talking.

• 1:05:49AJ Gentile?

  Another area of Cassa Valis.

• 1:05:53AJ Gentile?

  And the video ends. So both videos are thoroughly debunked.

• 1:05:57Speaker 05

  Ah, let me ask you. How long did it take you to find all those shots there, boyo?

• 1:06:01AJ Gentile?

  It took me well over 100 hours of searching Apollo footage and images from every space program and Mars mission, going back to the 1960s.

• 1:06:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you wonder why it burned out.

• 1:06:12AJ Gentile?

  I don't wonder that.

• 1:06:13Speaker 05

  You spent two weeks working on four minutes episode.

• 1:06:17AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, it's called commitment.

• 1:06:19Speaker 05

  Eh, it's called OCD.

• 1:06:21AJ Gentile?

  I can't argue with that. Two weeks.

• 1:06:26AJ Gentile?

  So the videos are definitely fake. As for Jackie from NASA, I couldn't confirm anything about her story. She didn't sound like a scientist to me, but who knows? She might be telling the truth. William Rutledge is considered debunked. There's no record of him being an astronaut, and it's not like there are that many astronauts. There are records of all of them.

• 1:06:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, not if they're secret astronauts.

• 1:06:45AJ Gentile?

  That's true, and that's what Rutledge says. There's no record of him because it's classified. Which brings us to Gary McKinnon. He says that he found proof of a secret space program, and I believe him. Um, it was an Excel spreadsheet, and um, there was a non-terrestrial officers list. And I can't remember the file name of the spreadsheet, but the heading on the column was "non-terrestrial officers."

• 1:07:08AJ Gentile?

  Um, obviously, it wasn't aliens. It wasn't, you know, Little Green Man. Um, I took it to just think it must be evidence of a... An off-Earth fleet. You know, if you have non-terrestrial officers, you must have spreadsheets that are based in, oh, maybe geospatial orbit. Who knows? Now, I don't know if there really is a secret space program, but I believe Gary found something. And whatever he found was so sensitive that President Obama, the DOD, and the DOJ tried to have him... extradited to the US. They wanted to put him in prison for 70 years.

• 1:07:40Speaker 05

  For accessing computers with no password? How was this on him?

• 1:07:44AJ Gentile?

  The charges filed against Gary say that he wasn't authorized to access those systems. The charges fail to mention that NASA and the DOD were sloppy with their network security. That's one of the reasons why the UK didn't allow the extradition.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  He will not be going to the United States anytime soon.

• 1:07:58Speaker 05

  Hear, hear! God save the Queen! Pip, pip!

• 1:08:01AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, that was a pretty big deal. The United States isn't used to hearing no.

• 1:08:05Speaker 02

  And I trust that this will get resolved in a way that underscores the seriousness of the issue.

• 1:08:10AJ Gentile?

  The coalition came into power. They blocked the extradition.

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  But also underscores the fact that we work together and we can find an appropriate solution. He will not be going to the United States anytime soon.

• 1:08:23AJ Gentile?

  Now, what doesn't help the story is that movie I showed you before, Alternative 3. That aired in 1977 as a mockumentary about a secret space program to Mars by Apollo astronauts in coordination with the Soviets.

• 1:08:38Speaker 06

  We obtained an acceptable picture, which are now about to see as we saw it.

• 1:08:46AJ Gentile?

  And when it aired, people thought it was real. And Project Red Sun seems to follow along with that plot almost exactly. So some of the evidence of Project Red Sun can be dismissed, but not all of it. A lot of Project Red Sun's claims were later proven to be true, like there was once water on Mars, lots of it.

• 1:09:05Speaker 02

  Tonight for the future of everything, we're going back three billion years into the past. Picture Mars as a world with water. According to NASA, oceans covered as much as 20% of the red planet.

• 1:09:16AJ Gentile?

  And the documents leaked to Scantum Borlo have coordinates that overlap with rover landing sites. Now, if I were a conspiracy theorist...

• 1:09:23Speaker 05

  Truth seeker?

• 1:09:25AJ Gentile?

  Right. If I were one of those, I would be suspicious. It's almost as if NASA is carefully managing the flow of information and expectations about Mars exploration. Now, I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening at the same time that space exploration is becoming privatized. And if you warm Mars up, you will... There's a bunch of frozen CO2 that will evaporate. ...intensified the atmosphere and um. Get your ass to Mars. You'd actually want kind of global warming on Mars. As companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin head toward Mars, they'll operate with less public oversight than government agencies. Open your mind. You know that if Elon Musk lands on Mars, he's going to tell us what he finds. The US government doesn't want Elon exposing them for lying to the public.

• 1:10:09Speaker 05

  You mean exposing them for lying to the public again?

• 1:10:13AJ Gentile?

  Right. So while SpaceX prepares to go to Mars, NASA can slowly release more and more information. So that by the time SpaceX gets there, there are no more surprises. And NASA's probably OK with this. Elon thinks he'll be making history by landing human beings on Mars. But it may very well turn out that all he did was create the perfect cover for a classified space program that truly never ended.

• 1:10:40AJ Gentile?

  Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the. Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than. Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.

• 1:11:12AJ Gentile?

  Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the. Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they decided. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than. Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline. That's three plus one, five plus zero, zero. We have a few more of those secret Mars mission episodes coming up. They're a lot of fun.

• 1:11:53AJ Gentile?

  What's this?

• 1:11:53Speaker 05

  Full bunker mode, human. Everything's beeping, old timers and alarms. This is definitely a coordinated attack.

• 1:12:01AJ Gentile?

  Have you considered just turning them off?

• 1:12:03Speaker 05

  Oh, you sweet summer human. That's what they want me to do. Now, now you've upset Gerdy. Nice work.

• 1:12:10AJ Gentile?

  I didn't do anything. You're the one that's...

• 1:12:12Speaker 05

  Data smoke detector chirping Morse code. Uh, Morgan, translation. E-L-I...uh, hello. What? It says, "How to kill goldfish." Recession!

• 1:12:26AJ Gentile?

  Next episode is 151, the Phobos Incident.

• 1:12:33AJ Gentile?

  At the height of the space race in the late 1970s, the Viking probes successfully landed on Mars, collecting pictures, data, and samples from the red planet. It was so successful that Soviet scientists wanted their shot at glory. But their focus wasn't on Mars. It was on its moon, Phobos, named after the Greek god of fear. After all, if NASA could land on Mars, landing on one of its moons should be easy, right? Well, it turns out Mars's largest moon was right to be named after the Greek god of fear. Because as barren as the landscape looks, as impossible as it is to live there, something does. And that something does not want to be seen.

• 1:13:28AJ Gentile?

  Scientists and astronomers have long debated the potential for life on Mars. When the first probes landed on the surface, the outlook for finding life wasn't good. The landscape was barren. The atmosphere a reddish-green haze. This did not look like a planet that could support even the simplest life forms. However, after further study, opinions have changed. As I've shown on this channel, NASA has been taking some creative license with their photography.

• 1:13:57Speaker 05

  Link below to the video about Mars and the NASA cover-up.

• 1:14:01AJ Gentile?

  Right. The Martian atmosphere is actually bluish gray, not green or red. And the surface of Mars used to be a lot like Earth, covered in vast oceans of water, liquid water, just like Earth. As you know, the Earth has a spinning iron-nickel core that creates a magnetic field. This field protects us from solar wind and radiation. Well, billions of years ago, Mars had a similar core, which gave it similar protection. But eventually, the Martian core stopped spinning, and without the protection of its magnetic field, solar wind stripped away most of the Martian atmosphere. The reason there's water on Earth is because our atmosphere is actually pretty heavy.

• 1:14:43AJ Gentile?

  When Mars lost its atmospheric pressure, its water evaporated into space. Well, most of it's water. There's still water frozen in the Martian ice caps. Scientists have even discovered organic compounds in Martian rocks, compounds that are the building blocks of life. So if there are signs of life on Mars, what about its moons? Could there be life there too? Well, Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, both named after the sons of the Greek god Ares. American astronomer Aesop Hall discovered them in 1877. Now, Phobos is the larger and closer of the two moons, but "large" in this case is misleading. It's only about 14 miles across. For comparison, our moon is 2,000 miles wide.

• 1:15:28AJ Gentile?

  Phobos is also oddly close to Mars, only about 5,000 miles away. Our moon is 200,000 miles away. Phobos is covered with massive craters and dents. The surface is dull with no atmosphere. It's not round at all. It's been called a giant potato. Phobos looks more like an asteroid than a moon. And for a long time, astronomers thought Phobos and Deimos were asteroids that got captured by Mars's gravity. Not only do they almost perfectly resemble asteroids, they appear to be made out of the same type of rock, but their orbit is so oddly close to Mars that scientists from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, proposed another theory. Instead of being trapped asteroids...

• 1:16:13AJ Gentile?

  Mars's moons might have formed in a similar way to our moon.

• 1:16:16Speaker 05

  Oh, you mean created by aliens in a distant part of the galaxy? And brought here to serve as a base of operations?

• 1:16:23AJ Gentile?

  Uh, no, I'm talking about the giant impact hypothesis. That a large object collided with the Earth, and the moon was formed by the debris from the impact.

• 1:16:32Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, that's not how the moon was formed.

• 1:16:34AJ Gentile?

  Well, I have my suspicions too, but let's stick with Mars.

• 1:16:37Speaker 05

  Okay, but if you throw out more cockamamie theories, you're gonna hear it.

• 1:16:41AJ Gentile?

  I know, but you're gonna like the theory about Mars.

• 1:16:44Speaker 05

  Eh, we'll see.

• 1:16:51AJ Gentile?

  If an asteroid strikes a planet hard enough to create debris, a moon can form, or in the case of Mars, two moons. And there's scientific evidence to back it up. Just like Mars, scientists have found inactive signs of life on the tiny moon. Possible remnants of microorganisms or DNA, AKA, the building blocks of life. Martian life.

• 1:17:13Speaker 05

  Okay, you're right. I like this theory.

• 1:17:15AJ Gentile?

  According to one of the lead scientists at JAXA, Phobos is an ideal natural laboratory.

• 1:17:23AJ Gentile?

  If Martian life once existed and was widespread elsewhere on Mars, the chance that its dead remains exist also on Phobos is, in my opinion, relatively high. This is because numerous small asteroidal impacts on Mars eject Martian surface material, and the ejecta is relatively easily transferred to Phobos. Another scientist on the team had a similar thought.

• 1:17:51Speaker 05

  In my opinion, of all the chances for finding life as we know it in the solar system, the surfaces of Mars and Phobos are our best bet. Phobos is a time capsule of ancient Mars.

• 1:18:04AJ Gentile?

  If ancient life existed on Mars, its moons could be the key to unlocking the red planet's secrets. In fact, Phobos could be the key to unlocking many secrets. Even though it's smaller and less symmetrical than our moon, it has one surprising similarity. Like our moon, Phobos might be hollow.

• 1:18:30AJ Gentile?

  In the 1960s, Soviet astronomers started noticing Phobos's orbit wasn't exactly normal. It was orbiting faster than Mars was spinning, meaning it was lighter than expected, much lighter.

• 1:18:45AJ Gentile?

  A faster orbit also means the gravitational field was extremely weak, so weak that 150-pound human on Phobos would weigh only 2 ounces.

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  Oh, how much would you have weighed on Phobos when you had your COVID weight?

• 1:18:59AJ Gentile?

  I don't want to talk about that. The idea of Phobos being hollow gained traction in the 1950s and 60s. Russian astrophysicist Joseph Shlovsky and even Carl Sagan proposed that the moon's unusual orbit could mean only one thing: Phobos must be hollow. Not only that, but Shlovsky hypothesized that Phobos must have a thin sheet metal structure on its outside. In other words, Phobos is artificial, unnatural, alien, whatever you want to call it. And other scientists agreed. Dr. Fred Singer thought that a hollow Phobos was a perfectly sound explanation.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  If the satellite is indeed spiraling inward, as deduced from astronomical observation, then there is little alternative to the hypothesis that it is hollow and therefore Martian-made.

• 1:19:52AJ Gentile?

  Fred Singer wasn't a nobody. He was the science adviser to President Eisenhower. Even NASA admits the moon is odd. In their words, "The interior of Phobos could be a rubble pile barely holding together." One Phobos researcher said, "The moon appears to be held together by a kind of mildly cohesive outer fabric."

• 1:20:12Speaker 05

  Outer fabric like Martian sheet metal?

• 1:20:15AJ Gentile?

  Could be. Whatever it was, astronomers and scientists from around the world were beginning to suspect Phobos was hiding some secrets. And the Russians? They wanted in.

• 1:20:32AJ Gentile?

  En julio de 1988, los soviets lanzaron dos probas: FOBOS 1 y FOBOS 2. Estas fueron aviones espaciales sofisticados, equipados con instrumentos de arte de la época.

• 1:20:44AJ Gentile?

  La misión era estudiar el entorno martiano y recoger imágenes detalladas de la superficie de FOBOS. Y no fue solo los soviets los que querían estos datos. La misión fue respaldada por 14 otras naciones, incluidas las EE.UU. Pero la misión de FOBOS comenzó con un inicio difícil.

• 1:21:01AJ Gentile?

  Antes de que FOBOS 1 pudiera recoger cualquier dato, un operativo de la Tierra entró en el mal comando. La proba se alejó de su fuente de energía, el Sol.

• 1:21:10Speaker 05

  Alguien agarró la proba con la punta de la pierna.

• 1:21:13AJ Gentile?

  Sí.

• 1:21:14Speaker 05

  Agarró la proba con la punta de la pierna.

• 1:21:16AJ Gentile?

  Detente.

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  No hay control Z, eh?

• 1:21:18AJ Gentile?

  No. Sin energía y sin contacto radio, FOBOS 1 se perdía en el espacio. Pero FOBOS 2 estaba funcionando perfectamente, por un par de meses, de todos modos. Sin embargo, el 28 de marzo de 1989, justo cuando FOBOS 2 estaba preparando para hacer su approach más cercano a FOBOS, pasó algo inesperado. Comenzó a salir de control. Los señales de la proba se debilitaron y comenzaron a actuar extraño. En lugar de mantener su curso constante, la proba de repente comenzó a girar fuera de control. El centro de control no pudo explicarlo. Esto era espacio. Las cosas no empiezan a girar aleatoriamente, a menos que se les pegue algo.

• 1:21:59AJ Gentile?

  Se juntaron para mantener contacto con la proba, pero no hubo éxito. FOBOS 2 envió una última imagen. Después, todo se volvió negro.

• 1:22:12AJ Gentile?

  Después de días de intentos fallidos de reconectar con FOBOS 2, la misión finalmente terminó. La falla de la proba de repente se supone que causó una falda de computadora.

• 1:22:22Speaker 05

  Supuestamente.

• 1:22:23AJ Gentile?

  Bueno, antes de que fallara, FOBOS 2 había enviado datos a la Tierra. La última transmisión de FOBOS 2 contenía una serie de imágenes perplexas. Y la última imagen que FOBOS 2 envió a la Tierra proporcionó prueba de que no falló debido a una simple falda de computadora. FOBOS 2 fue atacado por un UFO.

• 1:22:52AJ Gentile?

  After the mission ended, the Russian government kept the majority of the photos secret. But this was a multinational cooperative effort. The other countries involved didn't agree to the secrecy, to put it nicely. So after increasing pressure, the Russians finally released the photos taken by Phobos 2. Well, most of them. The Russians kept the last four frames of the photo dump classified. Seconds before Phobos 2 went MIA, it snapped a photo of its attacker. It depicted a long elliptical shadow cast on the surface of Phobos.

• 1:23:29AJ Gentile?

  A massive oval object was hovering above the moon.

• 1:23:34AJ Gentile?

  The shadow's shape and size could not be explained as natural phenomena. Some scientists thought it might be a shadow or a trick of the eye, while others speculated that it was an object.

• 1:23:47AJ Gentile?

  Either way, something was there that shouldn't have been. But without those last four classified photos, it was hard to know exactly what it was. Then, in 1991, Soviet test pilot Maria Popovich revealed one of those top-secret Russian photos, and suddenly, it all became clear. In the picture, a long elliptical object is clearly seen approaching Phobos. It's estimated to be 15 miles long.

• 1:24:16AJ Gentile?

  On a recent sightings episode,

• 1:24:18Speaker 02

  we brought you information about the possible destruction of a Soviet space probe called Phobos by a UFO. Phobos 2 was sending back pictures, as usual when suddenly the last picture from Phobos arrived. On that picture, you could see Phobos, the Martian moon, and a long-shaped object. The object cast a passing shadow on Mars.

• 1:24:44AJ Gentile?

  And it's interesting to note that these photos were taken with infrared cameras. Infrared is used to measure the temperature of objects. If the object were a shadow or trick of the eye, it wouldn't appear in an infrared photo. The question then became, "What was it? And why would it attack the Phobos 2 probe and cut its transmission? Did it think the probe was a threat? Or was there something it was trying to hide?" Because Phobos 2 sent back another very interesting image. It was a close-up photo of a region of Mars. And in that photo is what looks like the ruins of an ancient city.

• 1:25:28AJ Gentile?

  Mars's tiny moon Phobos holds some massive secrets. Secrets that something or someone doesn't want us to see. Over the decades, probes and satellites sent to Mars and its moons have captured images of things that don't look exactly natural. Perhaps the most famous is the so-called "Face on Mars."

• 1:25:47Speaker 05

  Face on Mars, link below.

• 1:25:51AJ Gentile?

  The face is located in a region of Mars called Cydonia. It was first photographed by NASA's Viking 1 orbiter in 1976. Some believe it's evidence of an ancient Martian civilization. Others think it's a message or a marker left by alien visitors.

• 1:26:08Speaker 05

  Ah, Nunaki.

• 1:26:10AJ Gentile?

  Could be. According to the Anunnaki legend, not only did they stop on Mars on the way to Earth, they set up an outpost there.

• 1:26:17Speaker 05

  Anunnaki, link below.

• 1:26:21AJ Gentile?

  Also in the Cydonia region and elsewhere, there are a number of objects that look like artificial constructions, including pyramids, obelisks, even the ruins of ancient cities. One of the most intriguing structures is a pyramid in the region called Elysium Planitia. The Elysium Pyramid is a massive structure that rises nearly a mile above the surrounding plain. Many believe that the pyramid's shape and alignment are too precise to be a natural formation. The only explanation is that it was constructed by intelligent beings.

• 1:26:59AJ Gentile?

  Other puzzling features on Mars include the so-called tubes and glass tunnels that form a network across the planet's surface. Some say this is the work of an alien architect and evidence of underground Martian cities.

• 1:27:14AJ Gentile?

  Phobos orbits very close to Mars. If there was a civilization on Mars at some point, you'd expect to see anomalies on Phobos as well, and we do. Phobos has deep, uniform grooves. The grooves are not only parallel to each other, but they're nearly the same width, 700 to 1,000 feet, and they're the same depth, 75 to 90 feet. Not only that, but they're brighter than the rest of the surface, as if they were made from a different material. And over the years, new grooves have formed, grooves that suddenly appeared in between space missions. But it wasn't just the tiny moon holding secrets. The Phobos-2 probe also took pictures of what looked like remnants of a city on Mars.

• 1:28:00AJ Gentile?

  Again, you can see rectangular shapes and even grid-like straight lines, as if there are buildings and roads below.

• 1:28:09AJ Gentile?

  Now, scientists claim these anomalies on Mars and Phobos are a trick of the eye, nothing more than pareidolia, our tendency to see patterns in random images. Phobos's craters, too, are strange. The largest is Stickney Crater, named after the wife of Asif Haw, the man who discovered the moons. Stickney Crater is a massive six miles wide. It takes up almost half of Phobos's surface. The rim is so circular that it almost looks fake. Believers of the hollow Phobos theory believe that the crater is the entrance to the moon's cavernous interior, caverns potentially harboring alien life. And only a short distance from the giant crater is the Phobos Monolith.

• 1:28:52AJ Gentile?

  It's 279 feet across and 300 feet tall. It's oddly bright and oddly rectangular. Nature likes circles and curves, not sharp edges and straight lines. American astronaut Buzz Aldrin even talks about the monolith.

• 1:29:09AJ Gentile?

  We should go boldly where man has not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit the moon of Mars. There's a monolith there, a very unusual... unusual structure on this little potato-shaped object that goes around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out about that, they're gonna say, "Who put that there?"

• 1:29:34AJ Gentile?

  Some say the monolith is an artifact, a remnant of an ancient Martian civilization, placed near the crater as a beacon or marker. But there is another theory about the monolith, that it's evidence of technology, technology shared between worlds. Because there are structures on Phoos and Mars that are almost identical to structures found right here on Earth.

• 1:30:04AJ Gentile?

  In the Sidonia region of Mars, along with the face and what appear to be buildings, a number of obelisks have been identified. These structures seem to be arranged in a precise geometric pattern, forming a series of interlocking triangles and hexagons, too precise and too consistent to result from natural processes. But when you think of obelisks, you can't help but think of ancient Egypt. And you can't talk about Egypt without mentioning the Great Pyramid of Giza. There's a theory that the Great Pyramid was not a tomb or monument, that it was an ancient power plant.

• 1:30:39AJ Gentile?

  And there's scientific evidence to support the theory that the pyramid created electricity, a lot of it. Nikola Tesla even tried to replicate this technology.

• 1:30:48Speaker 05

  Tesla Pyramid link below.

• 1:30:51AJ Gentile?

  So now, we have to consider the Electric Universe Theory.

• 1:30:54Speaker 05

  Electric Universe Theory link, well, you know, it's below.

• 1:31:00AJ Gentile?

  This theory says that electricity, not gravity, is the dominant force in the universe. Everything is part of a vast interconnected web of electric currents. Every planet, every star, and every galaxy, all connected. And that electricity is all around us, everywhere. Now, if that's true, the pyramids around the world, like those in Egypt, Mexico, Indonesia, and Peru, could have been tapping into this electricity field. This is zero-point energy, which exists in all quantum fields. It's all around us all the time. The pyramids could have harnessed that energy and transmitted it around the world to the obelisks, which were like power substations.

• 1:31:46AJ Gentile?

  And if that's true, then the pyramids and obelisks on Mars could have served the same purpose. Remember Mars used to have water and an atmosphere, just like Earth. And maybe the monolith on Phobos was another one of those power substations, harnessing Zero Point Energy and delivering power to whatever's inside. And maybe when Mars lost its atmosphere, it short-circuited the Zero Point Energy Field connecting Mars to Earth. But there's no way to tell. No scientist will look into Zero Point Energy. Well, that's not completely true.

• 1:32:26AJ Gentile?

  Quite a few scientists have investigated Zero Point Energy. Some have even patented devices that they claim could tap into this energy field and provide free electricity to everyone, everywhere on the planet. We even have an episode coming up on these devices. But, spoiler alert: All those patents were seized by the government, and all the scientists are dead.

• 1:32:54AJ Gentile?

  So what exactly happened to Phobos 2? Why did it start spinning out of control? Why did Russia keep the photos classified for so long? What are the anomalies and who or what created them? Well, like the Mars episode, this one is difficult to debunk. But not impossible. Let's start with the facts. All the mysteries surrounding Phobos 2's sudden failure is true. In 1989, Soviet scientists published a report in Nature magazine about Phobos 2's experiments. Only three paragraphs in the 37-page report discuss the probe's loss. They admit not only that it was spinning, but that it was possibly struck by something. Now, whether it was targeted by an alien ship, we don't know.

• 1:33:38AJ Gentile?

  But what the Russians downplayed was it was spinning before it got to Mars. Phobos 1 went dark, that's true, and Phobos 2 was malfunctioning the whole time. Because it was spinning, Phobos 2 was transmitting data all over the place. The data that did get back to Earth was messy. The cameras weren't working properly. The giant 35-mile-long cigar-shaped UFO, it was a data glitch. But the story is worse than that. Remember how Marina Popovich came forward as a whistleblower? She said that the image of the giant cigar-shaped craft was the last one sent before the probe went dark. Well, that wasn't true. There were actually 57 more images sent back to Earth for two more days.

• 1:34:24AJ Gentile?

  In those images, you see a white line going down the center of every frame taken with the infrared camera, no matter what the camera was pointing at. When Phobos took pictures of Jupiter, there's the white line again.

• 1:34:35Speaker 05

  White lines, vision dreams of passion going through my mind, and all the while I think of you. Grandma's the flesh.

• 1:34:45AJ Gentile?

  I know who it is.

• 1:34:49AJ Gentile?

  Okay, so there was no cigar-shaped UFO. That was a glitch with the infrared lens. When we look at the same pictures that aren't infrared, there's no object. Now, most articles and videos about the Phobos 2 incident will say that Marina Popovich was a cosmonaut who'd been to space, but she wasn't. But she really was a test pilot, and she was a rock star. She reached the rank of Colonel and was the first Soviet woman to break the sound barrier. But she was also a big-time UFO believer. Now, whether she was lying about the image or is just misinformed and excited, I'm not sure. But I am sure she wasn't a whistleblower. She had permission to show those photos. The Soviet government loved her.

• 1:35:31AJ Gentile?

  When she passed away in 2017, she was buried with full military honors. Now, also, to sell the Phobos 2 story, that clip of Buzz Aldrin talking about the monolith is often used, but it's never used in full. It's usually cut off at "Who put it there?", implying that an alien race put it there. But if you listen to the full clip, he thinks it's a natural formation. When people find out about that, they're gonna say, "Who put that there? Who put that there?" Well... The universe, put it there. If you choose, God put it there. The elliptical shadow is a little harder to debunk. We do have newer images that show the shadow of Phobos on Mars, and the shapes are identical.

• 1:36:14AJ Gentile?

  Now UFO believers will say this is impossible because the original Phobos shadow has sharp edges. But that photo had been retouched. Specifically, it was sharpened. If you look at the original unsharpened image, it looks exactly like current photos. It's not a UFO. Okay, but is Phobos hollow?

• 1:36:33Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:36:33AJ Gentile?

  Probably not.

• 1:36:34Speaker 05

  Damn it.

• 1:36:35AJ Gentile?

  Phobos was formed when a bunch of small asteroids clumped together. So while it's not hollow, it's full of caverns and empty spaces.

• 1:36:44AJ Gentile?

  The grooves on Phobos are weird, because Mars's other moon, Demos, doesn't have them. Now, last year, a paper was published in the Planetary Science Journal. It says the grooves are probably caused by Mars's gravity which squeezes and pulls on the moon. The grooves are where the parts of the surface of Phobos are falling into those empty spaces, causing channels and canyons. Now, this is a sign that Phobos will eventually be pulled apart. And this is expected to happen in about 40 million years.

• 1:37:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, but what about the sheet metal skin?

• 1:37:15AJ Gentile?

  Well, the paper addresses this too. When Phobos is pulled and squeezed, it throws up dust. Over millions of years, this dust settles fairly evenly around the surface. So Phobos is covered in a thin layer of skin, but it's not sheet metal, it's dust. Now, the monolith is there.

• 1:37:33Speaker 05

  Yes!

• 1:37:34AJ Gentile?

  But it's not an unusual feature. Monoliths like this are found all over the solar system, including our moon.

• 1:37:41Speaker 05

  All built by the aliens for the space internet.

• 1:37:44AJ Gentile?

  That could be aliens, I'm not saying it's not. But I am saying monoliths are common. They could be common because they were placed there, we don't know. The pictures of the city on Mars is probably Paridolia. But until we go there, we won't know for sure. Now, the glass tubes and tunnels actually were explored. And they're not glass tubes at all, just rock formations.

• 1:38:04Speaker 05

  I get so annoyed when everything is debunked.

• 1:38:07AJ Gentile?

  Well, I don't know if I debunked everything. But I think I presented enough information to help you separate the facts from a lot of wrong information that's floating around the internet. There's still so much we don't know about Mars.

• 1:38:21AJ Gentile?

  Regardless, Phobos is still a very interesting object. And scientists believe evidence of life could be there. All we have to do is land a probe there and check. It may be a coincidence, but every mission to land on Phobos has failed. But we're not giving up. This September, Japan is sending a probe to Mars. And that probe is scheduled to collect samples from Phobos late next year. And that probe could answer all the questions about this mysterious moon. Unless the aliens shoot it down.

• 1:38:53AJ Gentile?

  Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the... Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they just started. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than... Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the... Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they just started. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than... Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.

• 1:39:59AJ Gentile?

  Mostly debunked, but there are still some things about Phobos that don't make sense.

• 1:40:05AJ Gentile?

  I'm afraid to turn around.

• 1:40:09AJ Gentile?

  What in the world...

• 1:40:10Speaker 05

  They're everywhere. I can hear digital whispering between the devices. Uh, the smart fridge just ordered 47 gallons of milk.

• 1:40:18AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's definitely not right.

• 1:40:20Speaker 05

  It knows of lactose intolerance. Sir? Sir? What is it, Morgan? The rhythm ain't server. The fish.

• 1:40:28Speaker 05

  It's done, human. The machines, the machines are self-aware.

• 1:40:32AJ Gentile?

  Uh, okay, you're making me nervous now.

• 1:40:35Speaker 05

  And I just realized something.

• 1:40:36AJ Gentile?

  What?

• 1:40:37Speaker 05

  We should've saved this bit for an AI compilation.

• 1:40:40AJ Gentile?

  Now you tell me. Next, episode 181 about the legend of the crystal skulls. And I had a lot of requests for this one, and I resisted doing it for a long time because I didn't think there was anything really new to say about it. But in doing the research, I think I found a few nuggets that maybe you didn't know. See you in a minute.

• 1:41:04AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon was obsessed with UFOs and believed governments were covering up evidence that UFOs exist. In the year 2000, he decided to do a little digging. Gary was a computer expert, so what better place to dig than on US government computers? What he found was so shocking that it sent the entire United States government into a full-blown panic. In fact, the US spent 10 years trying to prosecute Gary. He was looking at 70 years in federal prison. But what information did Gary find that could cause the US government to become so aggressive?

• 1:41:36Speaker 05

  Please say aliens, please say aliens.

• 1:41:38AJ Gentile?

  Aliens.

• 1:41:39Speaker 05

  Yabba dabba doo!

• 1:41:46AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon's stepfather was into science fiction and space travel, and this rubbed off on Gary. When he was only 12 years old, he joined a Bufora, the British UFO Research Association. But it all came together when Gary was 13 and had his own UFO sighting. He saw a bright red light in the sky that went from horizon to horizon in about five seconds. At first, he thought it was a meteor, but it was moving too slowly and erratically. He said it moved through the sky in a waving motion like a dolphin bouncing in and out of the water.

• 1:42:16Speaker 05

  Oh, you know what? Space dolphins move that way on purpose.

• 1:42:19AJ Gentile?

  Really?

• 1:42:20Speaker 05

  Heh heh, I only said that because I wanted to see him make a face like he smelled a fart.

• 1:42:24AJ Gentile?

  As time went on, Gary became convinced that governments around the world, especially the United States government, had evidence that UFOs and aliens were real. But this evidence was being withheld from the population.

• 1:42:36Speaker 05

  Of course they withhold it. And thank God they do, or we'd be out of a job.

• 1:42:41AJ Gentile?

  Amen to that. Well, Gary McKinnon was an expert in computers and networking and worked as a systems administrator. Even though he was good at his job, he was bored with it. His real passion was UFOs, a passion that was becoming an obsession. And if the government was hiding information about UFOs, he was gonna do something about it.

• 1:42:59Speaker 05

  Idle fins on a devil's playground. That's something I teach you on my guppies.

• 1:43:03AJ Gentile?

  Gary knew that both NASA and the US Department of Defense used Windows, which he described as a [BLEEP] operating system. Using skills he learned as a sysadmin, he wrote a program to do one simple thing: check the passwords of all computers on a network. He wanted to know if they used the word "password" as a password, or if they used no password at all. His program ran for a year and found hundreds of wide-open government computers. To this day, he insists he wasn't hacking or attacking the computer systems. He said it was more like going fishing for information.

• 1:43:35Speaker 05

  Fishing, eh? That phrase is a microaggression.

• 1:43:38AJ Gentile?

  Save it for Twitter. Eventually, Gary found computers inside the US Navy, US Space Command, and NASA. But he didn't find anything interesting, until he stumbled across...

• 1:43:49Speaker 05

  Aliens?

• 1:43:50AJ Gentile?

  Not exactly.

• 1:43:51Speaker 05

  What did he find?

• 1:43:52AJ Gentile?

  He found a spreadsheet.

• 1:43:54Speaker 05

  Ugh, sometimes you are so disappointing.

• 1:44:00AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon had accessed some of the most highly classified files in the US government. Most of what he found was pretty boring: lots of staff reports, department memos, mostly just bureaucratic paperwork. But Gary found a spreadsheet on a US Navy server that caught his eye. It was called "Non-Terrestrial Officers", and contained a list of names. He was looking at a list of people stationed somewhere other than Planet Earth.

• 1:44:24Speaker 05

  Non-Terrestrial officers could be humans serving on another planet, or non-humans serving on this planet.

• 1:44:31AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's true, but in this case, Gary was pretty sure that these were humans. Because the list showed officer transfers from one ship to another. So Gary looked for the ships in the US Naval Registry.

• 1:44:41Speaker 05

  Let me guess, the ships weren't on the list.

• 1:44:45AJ Gentile?

  They were not. They appeared to belong to a secret fleet, a fleet operating in space. But that wasn't even the most interesting thing that he found. A spreadsheet is just words. But you know what's worth a thousand of those?

• 1:44:58Speaker 05

  A picture?

• 1:44:59AJ Gentile?

  A picture. Gary McKinnon had heard the testimony of a woman named Donna Hare. She was a former NASA employee who worked at the agency for years. She said she saw quite a few UFOs in NASA satellite photos. But the photos, both physical and digital, were always altered to remove the UFOs from the images.

• 1:45:16Speaker 05

  Oh, you don't say.

• 1:45:18AJ Gentile?

  In the 1980s, Donna was working for NASA at Johnson Space Center. Specifically, she worked in the highly secure area known as Building Number Eight. One day, Donna stopped by a coworker's office about something completely different. When she walked in, this coworker had a satellite image on his computer screen. He showed her a white cigar-shaped object. He asked her what she thought it could be. She said it might be a blob on the emulsion or a scanning defect. But then he pointed to something that made Donna have to catch her breath. The object was casting a shadow on the ground. So whatever it was, it was real. Gary was intrigued by the story and thought Donna Hare was telling the truth. Since he already had access to NASA's computers, he wrote a program to search for the image.

• 1:46:01AJ Gentile?

  He narrowed his list of hundreds of computers down to just a few, inside Building Number Eight. Naturally, they had blank passwords, so he logged into them one by one. Most of these machines had empty desktops. But one computer had folders named "raw," "filtered," "processed," and "unprocessed." This was exactly how Donna described the computer in Building Number Eight. So this was the one. The folder labeled "unprocessed" contained an image. But the file was huge, so Gary couldn't download it. So he tried to view it on the remote desktop. So Gary McKinnon clicked the file and watched as the image appeared, pixel by pixel, line by line. At first, he saw nothing but blank space. But then the hemisphere of the planet began to form. And then he saw clouds.

• 1:46:45AJ Gentile?

  And then, about two-thirds of the way down, he saw what he was looking for: a spaceship. Gary saw a large silver cylinder, completely smooth, no rivets or seams of any kind. But a few seconds after opening the file, Gary noticed the mouse on the remote computer moved, but he wasn't moving it.

• 1:47:03Speaker 05

  Uh-oh, the jig is up.

• 1:47:04AJ Gentile?

  Whoever was sitting at the computer in building number eight turned off their network connection, and Gary was disconnected.

• 1:47:11Speaker 05

  Oh no, did he get a screenshot?

• 1:47:13AJ Gentile?

  Nope, no time. So the good news for Gary McKinnon was, his suspicions were proved correct. The bad news? The US government was on to him.

• 1:47:26Speaker 02

  Is this a UFO? And he's smiling at me and he says, "I can't tell you that." What I knew he meant was, it was, but he couldn't tell me. So I said, "What are you gonna do with this information?" And he said, "Well, we always have to airbrush them out before we sell them to the public." And I was just amazed that they had a protocol in place for getting rid of UFO pictures.

• 1:47:51AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon stumbled onto more evidence of what he saw in the file of non-terrestrial officers. Evidence of a secret space program within the US military. And this secret space program isn't new. There are clues about it going back over 50 years. In the 1960s, the US Air Force had a program that ran in parallel with NASA's Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. It was called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL. The MOL program had its own facilities and its own staff. They had uniforms and spacesuits, but they were completely different from NASA's. So there'd be no confusion that the MOL employees worked for a completely different program. The operation was so secret, that not even the wives knew what their husbands were working on.

• 1:48:31Speaker 05

  Outta wives don't need to know nothing. What happens in orbit, stays in orbit.

• 1:48:36AJ Gentile?

  You've been divorced how many times?

• 1:48:37Speaker 05

  Three.

• 1:48:38AJ Gentile?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:48:38Speaker 05

  Cheap shot.

• 1:48:39AJ Gentile?

  The MOL program was created to develop a spy station in space, but it was canceled by President Richard Nixon in 1969.

• 1:48:46Speaker 05

  Or was it?

• 1:48:47AJ Gentile?

  Right. But what Gary McKinnon stumbled onto was something far bigger than some Cold War spy program. After Gary found the cigar-shaped UFO on the NASA computer and got caught, US officials began to pressure the UK to help In early 2002, Gary was arrested and charged with 97 counts of causing damage to US intelligence assets, and he was accused of doing $800,000 worth of damage. The US government claimed he hacked into dozens of military computers and 16 NASA computers. They claimed he altered and deleted files, and that his activities were, in the US government's words, "intentional" and "calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion." These charges were very aggressive.

• 1:49:32AJ Gentile?

  Clearly, the US government was concerned about what Gary found, so they wanted to make an example of him and make sure no one else would ever try to access a single document mentioning UFOs. Gary McKinnon spent 10 years defending himself against these charges and trying to stay in the UK. If he were charged in the United States, he'd be facing up to 70 years in federal prison. The media picked up the story but downplayed the UFO connection. McKinnon was described as a hacker trying to harm the Pentagon. The only major publication to mention the UFO side of the story was the UK Daily Mail. Gary said this publicity is one of the things that saved him. Eventually, his case landed on the desk of UK Home Secretary Theresa May, who would eventually go on to be Prime Minister.

• 1:50:14AJ Gentile?

  She ruled that McKinnon could not be taken back to the US because he suffered from Asperger's. Now, Gary McKinnon did break the law, there's no disputing that. But he also did the US a favor. Using the hacker name Solo, he sent messages to US agencies telling them their security was weak. He felt he was morally justified.

• 1:50:32Speaker 07

  I thought if this technology really does exist, it should be used for the good of all of us, you know, free energy, or at least very cheap. If this is being kept secret, why? Because obviously that would be used against people if it's being kept secret, rather than furthering humanity. But at the time, there was a very popular phrase bandied about called "heating or eating." Old age pensioners had to choose whether

• 1:50:56Speaker 06

  To pay for their heating or pay to have food and then sit on their chair with a blanket and eat their food.

• 1:51:03AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon's case finally ended in 2012, and he became a celebrity in the UFO community. He'd exposed, or at least said he'd exposed, government knowledge of an alien presence. But his case proved there was something much more sinister going on. This wasn't something as simple as the US government covering up UFOs. This was proof that there was a highly organized, secret space program in place. This program has a staff of thousands. It has a fleet of spaceships. It has weapons more advanced than anything currently in use. And this program has a name: Solar Warden.

• 1:51:40Speaker 06

  Another incident, I knew someone in quarantine with the Apollo astronauts. He told me that the Apollo astronauts saw crap on the moon when we landed. The astronauts are told to keep this quiet. They're not allowed to talk about it.

• 1:51:57AJ Gentile?

  At the same time Gary McKinnon was snooping NASA's servers, rumors were going around about a secret space program named Solar Warden. Solar Warden came out of the program called the Strategic Defense Initiative. Now, this was a Reagan-era defense program nicknamed Star Wars by the media. Now, this program has multiple space platforms, similar to aircraft carriers. Its mission is to scan the solar system for unauthorized alien intrusions and report those intrusions to the US Space Force. According to the rumors, the US and other nations have treaties that say only a small number of alien visitors are allowed on Earth at a time. But the aliens had been breaking the treaties for decades.

• 1:52:35Speaker 05

  Arturians. Everybody knows those damn arturians can't be trusted.

• 1:52:39AJ Gentile?

  That sounds kinda racist.

• 1:52:41Speaker 05

  Save it for Twitter.

• 1:52:42AJ Gentile?

  Touche. As the story goes, Reagan was briefed on the aliens by military and civilian leaders. He immediately became determined to protect the Earth from the alien presence. Now, how do we know this? Reagan said so himself. In 2007, Harper Collins published The Reagan Diaries. This book is an insight into the president's daily life in the White House. His entries aren't written like a memoir. They're just thoughts that Reagan jotted down throughout the day. And on page 334, dated June 11, 1985, the president made the following entry. Lunch with five top space scientists. It was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier. And some of the developments...

• 1:53:21Speaker 05

  They're in are like science fiction, except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such that we could orbit three hundred people. Whoa, the Gipper let a big one slip, eh?

• 1:53:32AJ Gentile?

  He sure did. Now, if you know the space program, this entry makes no sense. The maximum capacity of a NASA space shuttle is eight people. At the time, the entire fleet was only four shuttles. Even if all the shuttles were used at the same time, which they never were, that's only thirty-two people. So what's Reagan talking about? Later, people suggested Reagan might not have been talking about space shuttles at all. Maybe he was referencing a program that was supposedly canceled in nineteen seventy-nine. A program to develop a space plane called Starraker.

• 1:54:02Speaker 05

  Oh, like the James Bond movie.

• 1:54:03AJ Gentile?

  No, that was Moonraker.

• 1:54:05Speaker 05

  Oh, right. Uh, hey, you know that girl at the end of the movie had braces?

• 1:54:08AJ Gentile?

  Yep, I thought so too, but she didn't. That's a Mandela effect.

• 1:54:12Speaker 05

  I can't get my brain to accept it.

• 1:54:14AJ Gentile?

  I can't either. Anyway, the Starraker, unlike the shuttle, could carry a lot of people. It was bigger than a seven forty-seven. It could carry a payload of two hundred thousand pounds, more than enough to put three hundred people on a space platform. So it's possible that Reagan was right and Solar Warden is real, at least technically. The first reference to a secret space program with the name Solar Warden is from early two thousand six. An anonymous post appeared on a bulletin board called the Open Minds Forum.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  We have a space fleet, which is codenamed Solar Warden. There were, as of two thousand five, eight ships, equivalent to aircraft carriers, and forty-three protectors, which are space planes. One was lost recently to an accident in Mars orbit while it was attempting to resupply the multinational colony within Mars. This base was established in nineteen sixty-four by American and Soviet teamwork. Not everything is as it seems. We have visited all the planets in our solar system, at a distance, of course, except Mercury. We've landed on Pluto and a few moons. These ships contain personnel from many countries and have sworn an oath to the world government. The technology came from that engineering.

• 1:55:26AJ Gentile?

  nearing alien disk wreckage and at times with alien assistance. For a few years, Solar Warden flew mostly under the radar in UFO circles. But in 2012, Solar Warden was back. In November of that year, a Huffington Post article by reporter Darren Perks was the first major news article about Solar Warden. It was also the first to tie in the story of Gary McKinnon. The article claimed that the program began in 1980 and operates under the U.S. Naval Network and Space Operations Command, the ANSoC. The space fleet has eight massive carriers, each over 600 feet long. Each carrier is staffed by 300 people and protected by about 40 scout ships, and these ships are used to intercept alien intruders.

• 1:56:09AJ Gentile?

  According to the report, there are permanent multinational bases on the moon and Mars that are supplied by the carriers.

• 1:56:16Speaker 05

  So that's why we never went back to the moon.

• 1:56:18AJ Gentile?

  Right, at least not publicly. Darren Perks personally investigated the Solar Warden story, and in 2010, he was contacted by a whistleblower in the U.S. Department of Defense. This contact confirmed that Solar Warden is real.

• 1:56:32Speaker 03

  While conducting a FOIA, Freedom of Information Request, with the DOD, Department of Defense, in 2010, I had a much unexpected response by email from them, which read, "About an hour ago, I spoke to a NASA rep who confirmed this was their program, and it was terminated by then-President Obama. He also informed me that it was not a joint program with the DOD. The NASA rep informed me that you should be directed to the Johnson Space Center FOIA manager."

• 1:57:00AJ Gentile?

  So assuming Perks wasn't lying, the email response clearly indicated Solar Warden existed, or something like it did, but was canceled by President Obama in the early 2000s. Perks never followed up on his original article, and, as you might expect, neither NASA nor the DOD has ever mentioned it. So if all we have are reports from anonymous people, that's not much proof of Solar Warden. But in 2007, we'd get more evidence, and this time, they're pictures.

• 1:57:29AJ Gentile?

  In 2007, a British amateur astronomer named John Leonard Wallson started using a new technique to film the night sky. By attaching special equipment to his telescope, he records objects in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet spectrums. He then takes the clearest frame from each band and combines them. This process is called luminance layering. Wallson first used the technique to view the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. And experts confirmed that his technique works. But things got really weird when he started recording videos of stars in the sky. Wallson discovered that many of the stars are not stars at all. They're in fact massive, highly reflective space platforms, exactly the type that Solar Warden uses.

• 1:58:10AJ Gentile?

  Some platforms have solar panels, other have what looks like weapons attached to the structures. He said some of the objects look like spaceships from Star Trek that might be used by the Federation or Klingons.

• 1:58:21Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, what a toilet paper and Captain Kirk have in common.

• 1:58:25AJ Gentile?

  Please don't.

• 1:58:25Speaker 05

  They both fly past Uranus and wipe out the Klingons.

• 1:58:35AJ Gentile?

  Wallson seemed to be confirming the presence of a vast fleet in the space above us, exactly as Solar Warden believers claimed.

• 1:58:42Speaker 05

  Oh, the government probably hates this guy, yeah?

• 1:58:45AJ Gentile?

  They sure do. Not long after releasing his images, the infamous black helicopters appeared, flying very close to his house.

• 1:59:02AJ Gentile?

  Wallson said that he was even being intimidated by what he called a "government goon", and they even got physical at one point. But there's more to Solar Warden than just questionable videos taken with a telescope. In the mid-1980s, rumors emerged of a secret government project, code name Aurora. Aurora is a triangle-shaped space plane. The program was even covered in aviation magazines. Now, there weren't many UFO sightings described as triangles before the 80s, but now this is a common type of UFO. Also during this time, the British Ministry of Defense opened up a highly classified office dedicated to quietly investigating UFOs. One of its employees was Nick Pope. Nick said on the wall of the main office was a large photograph of an object known

• 1:59:44AJ Gentile?

  as the Calvin UFO, which was taken near Calvin, England on August 4, 1990. The original photo has disappeared, but it depicted an 80-foot-long wedge or diamond-shaped object in the sky being chased away by a Harrier jet. This happened in front of civilian witnesses who took the picture. Using the recollections of people who had seen the actual photos, computer artists later recreated the image, and that was the last anyone heard about the UFO photo. But in 2022, a former British intelligence officer named Craig Lindsay released a scan of what he claimed was the authentic, original Calvin UFO photo. It showed the diamond-shaped object, the Harrier jet, and the fence in the foreground almost exactly matching the artist's rendering of the scene.

• 2:00:27AJ Gentile?

  Lindsay's photo was confirmed by experts to be authentic.

• 2:00:30Speaker 05

  So it was real?

• 2:00:32AJ Gentile?

  Well, no. Well, maybe. Probably not. The photo paper was authentic and typical for the 90s, but the originals are supposed to be color photos. Lindsay's is black and white. Also, the exact location of the original Calvin UFO photo was found, and the background didn't match. There should be hills and fields and trees in the background, and there just aren't. Now, supporters say you can't see the background in the photos because it's too foggy, but weather reports say the day the photo was taken was perfectly clear. So whatever Lindsay's photo is, it's probably not one of the originals. But the original photograph was taken by two civilian hikers, and for some strange reason, their identities are classified until the year 2076, and the photos do match the craft developed by the Aurora Project.

• 2:01:15AJ Gentile?

  And there are plenty of witnesses who say that's exactly what the Calvin UFO really is. So unless the original photos are found or we can speak to the hikers, we may never know what the object really was. Now skeptics of Solar Warden say it's too difficult to keep such a large program secret that people who were part of the program would talk. And they're right, people would talk. In fact, they did.

• 2:01:39AJ Gentile?

  The Air Force official response to any reports of that nature is that we have no such program. But there's a growing body of evidence that seems to indicate otherwise. A hypersonic aircraft with a speed of around 4,000.

• 2:01:52Speaker 07

  If you look at it from underneath the, what you see is a perfect triangle. Really quite unlike anything else has ever been flown. And according to Bill Sweetman, there's the Air Force's secret test base in southern Nevada called Groom Lake. There is something going on on a very large scale. And simply denying that anything like Aurora exists leaves wide open the question of what's going on there. Still, the Air Force says it knows nothing.

• 2:02:19AJ Gentile?

  Shortly after the Solar Warden story emerged, several witnesses came forward, each claiming to have been a part of the secret space program. One of these was Laura Eisenhower, great granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower. She said that at an early age, she'd been kidnapped and sent to other planets. She claimed she was involved in a war with an alien species called the Archons. Andrew Vasiago was another whistleblower. He said he was recognized at an early age as an ideal fit for a secret space program. He claimed that he used a teleporter, not a spaceship, to travel to Mars on many occasions. And while on Mars, he engaged in armed conflict with alien species. And by 2015, other whistleblowers confirmed their involvement.

• 2:03:01AJ Gentile?

  Not just in a vague secret space program, but specifically in a program called Solar Warden. Corey Goode said he was removed from his old life in the 1980s, then reverse-aged 20 years and recruited into a secret military program.

• 2:03:15Speaker 05

  Ugh, I'd like to reverse age 20 years.

• 2:03:18AJ Gentile?

  You and me both, pal. Now Corey Goode described a friendly race of blue avians that were part of a super-federation of aliens. The Federation is trying to help the human race fight off alien invaders, including a reptilian race.

• 2:03:31Speaker 05

  Is it people from out of space?

• 2:03:33AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:03:35Speaker 07

  So most of these unwanted entrances into our solar system would be more small groups of ETs or single craft that are trying to be sneaky? Right. Just trying to slip in? Marauder groups that would come in and do hit-and-runs to come in and take things and leave.

• 2:03:54Speaker 05

  Elizet people are crafty, so very, very crafty.

• 2:03:59AJ Gentile?

  Good said. Some people part of the secret space program are trying to push full disclosure, trying to force the alien presence into the open by doing flybys of the International Space Station and popping up on photos and videos. But disclosure still hasn't happened, and Solar Warden is virtually unknown to most of the population. So either there's no such thing as Solar Warden, or a secret space program, or it is true, and our solar system is a far more dangerous place than any of us could have possibly imagined.

• 2:04:31AJ Gentile?

  Solar Warden and the secret space program is a major branch of ufology, and because of social media, it's becoming more mainstream. Solar Warden is covered everywhere, from YouTube to TikTok to the occasional mainstream news story. But is it true? No. Well, maybe. Hmm, some of it. Gary McKinnon is certainly a real person, but he says he doesn't know anything about Solar Warden or how he got associated with it. He never saw that name on any document or image that he accessed. It seems that the article by Darren Perks in 2012 is what connected Gary to the Solar Warden mythology. And it's easy to understand the connection. The picture of the ship McKinnon saw sounds a lot like the carrier platforms in Solar Warden stories.

• 2:05:12AJ Gentile?

  But even if Gary McKinnon saw a picture of a UFO, and I believe he did, it's a leap to go from one photo to a huge secret space program conspiracy. Now, other aspects of the story, the carriers, the fighters, the large crews, and the guarding of the solar system, these sound like the plots of well-known science fiction books and TV shows. For example, a spaceship, moon bases, and fighters that monitor the solar system come straight from a 1970 British TV show called UFO.

• 2:05:40Speaker 05

  Ooh, is that the groovy one with the moon girls in short skirts and silver catsuits and the purple wigs?

• 2:05:45AJ Gentile?

  That's the one.

• 2:05:47Speaker 05

  Did I mention the short skirts?

• 2:05:49AJ Gentile?

  You did.

• 2:05:51Speaker 05

  It's a great show. It's really, uh, it's such a good, uh, always, uh, I always liked the, uh, the way he's a good, uh, kind of-

• 2:06:00AJ Gentile?

  Okay, snap out of it.

• 2:06:00Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 2:06:02AJ Gentile?

  The show also featured Sid, the Space Intruder Detector. Its job was to scan near-Earth space for alien intruders, just like Solar Warden. And some of the eyewitnesses, like Corey Goode, have been exposed as frauds. He was forced to testify under oath that he made the whole thing up, especially the part about the Blue Avians helping to protect the Earth.

• 2:06:21Speaker 05

  Well, maybe he made that part up, but lizard people are definitely real.

• 2:06:26AJ Gentile?

  Eyewitnesses like Laura Eisenhower and Andrew Basiego may be telling the truth, but their stories are a hodgepodge of every science fiction trope you can think of: time travel, teleportation, zero-point energy, and the list goes on. Now, I'm not saying they're lying, but I am saying they both tell very convoluted stories. The only aspect of Solar Warden that holds up to any scrutiny is Gary McKinnon's personal testimony. But unfortunately, that's all we have: his word. Now, think of the logistics involved in something like Solar Warden. In order for it to work, every nation on Earth would have to be involved: Russia, China, the US, and really, every industrialized country on Earth is aware when any other country launches a rocket of any kind. You couldn't put a fleet's worth of equipment into space without somebody noticing.

• 2:07:12AJ Gentile?

  You'd also have to constantly be sending food and water and air into space to resupply the fleet.

• 2:07:17Speaker 05

  Oh, they raise their own livestock in space, and they grow vegetables with hydroponics.

• 2:07:22AJ Gentile?

  What do you know about hydroponics?

• 2:07:24Speaker 05

  Uh, let's just say in college, I was very industrious.

• 2:07:29AJ Gentile?

  Ah. So if Solar Warden does exist, that would mean every nation on Earth has set aside their differences and come together for a common goal. That's actually a nice thought. Unfortunately, that common goal is protecting the human race from destruction by an alien invasion. Now, that's terrifying, so I don't know if Solar Warden is real. But when I think about its purpose, I really hope it isn't.

• 2:07:56AJ Gentile?

  The story may be debunked, but I still couldn't resist. I bought a bunch of crystal skulls. They're all over the place around here.

• 2:08:04AJ Gentile?

  Where are you? Are you, are you driving?

• 2:08:06Speaker 05

  We have to evacuate. I'm going full obish. The house is too dangerous. Uh, dirty, boys, to the bug-out vehicle.

• 2:08:14AJ Gentile?

  If bug-out vehicle means my truck, then you cannot...

• 2:08:16Speaker 05

  Bye, cruel digital world.

• 2:08:19AJ Gentile?

  Next is episode 106 about the secret space program called Solar Warden.

• 2:08:27AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon was obsessed with UFOs and believed governments were covering up evidence that UFOs exist. In the year 2000, he decided to do a little digging. Gary was a computer expert, so what better place to dig than on US government computers? What he found was so shocking that it sent the entire United States government into a full-blown panic. In fact, the US spent 10 years trying to prosecute Gary. He was looking at 70 years in federal prison. But what information did Gary find that could cause the US government to become so aggressive?

• 2:09:00Speaker 05

  Please say aliens, please say aliens.

• 2:09:02AJ Gentile?

  Aliens.

• 2:09:03Speaker 05

  Yabba dabba doo!

• 2:09:10AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon's stepfather was into science fiction and space travel, and this rubbed off on Gary. When he was only 12 years old, he joined a Bufora, the British UFO Research Association. But it all came together when Gary was 13 and had his own UFO sighting. He saw a bright red light in the sky that went from horizon to horizon in about five seconds. At first, he thought it was a meteor, but it was moving too slowly and erratically. He said it moved through the sky in a waving motion like a dolphin bouncing in and out of the water.

• 2:09:39Speaker 05

  Oh, you know what? Space dolphins move that way on purpose.

• 2:09:43AJ Gentile?

  Really?

• 2:09:43Speaker 05

  Hehe, I always said that because I wanted to see him make a face like he smelled a fart.

• 2:09:48AJ Gentile?

  As time went on, Gary became convinced that governments around the world, especially the United States government, had evidence that UFOs and aliens were real. But this evidence was being withheld from the population.

• 2:10:00Speaker 05

  Of course they withhold it. And thank God they do, or we'd be out of a job.

• 2:10:04AJ Gentile?

  Amen to that. Well, Gary McKinnon was an expert in computers and networking and worked as a systems administrator. Even though he was good at his job, he was bored with it. His real passion was UFOs, a passion that was becoming an obsession. And if the government was hiding information about UFOs, he was gonna do something about it.

• 2:10:22Speaker 05

  Idle fins on a devil's playground. That's something I teach you on my guppies.

• 2:10:27AJ Gentile?

  Gary knew that both NASA and the US Department of Defense used Windows, which he described as a [BLEEP] operating system. Using skills he learned as a sysadmin, he wrote a program to do one simple thing: check the passwords of all computers on a network. He wanted to know if they used the word "password" as a password, or if they used no password at all. His program ran for a year and found hundreds of wide-open government computers. To this day, he insists he wasn't hacking or attacking the computer systems. He said it was more like going fishing for information.

• 2:10:58Speaker 05

  Fishing, eh? That phrase is a microaggression.

• 2:11:02AJ Gentile?

  Save it for Twitter. Eventually, Gary found computers inside the US Navy, US Space Command, and NASA. But he didn't find anything interesting, until he stumbled across...

• 2:11:13Speaker 05

  Aliens?

• 2:11:13AJ Gentile?

  Not exactly.

• 2:11:14Speaker 05

  What did he find?

• 2:11:16AJ Gentile?

  He found a spreadsheet.

• 2:11:17Speaker 05

  Ugh, sometimes you are so disappointing.

• 2:11:23AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon had accessed some of the most highly classified files in the US government. Most of what he found was pretty boring: lots of staff reports, department memos, mostly just bureaucratic paperwork. But Gary found a spreadsheet on a US Navy server that caught his eye. It was called "Non-Terrestrial Officers" and contained a list of names. He was looking at a list of people stationed somewhere other than Planet Earth.

• 2:11:47Speaker 05

  Non-Terrestrial officers could be humans serving on another planet, or non-humans serving on this planet.

• 2:11:54AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's true, but in this case, Gary was pretty sure that these were humans. Because the list showed officer transfers from one ship to another. So Gary looked for the ships in the US Naval Registry.

• 2:12:05Speaker 05

  Let me guess, the ships weren't on the list.

• 2:12:08AJ Gentile?

  They were not. They appeared to belong to a secret fleet, a fleet operating in space. But that wasn't even the most interesting thing that he found. A spreadsheet is just words. But you know what's worth a thousand of those?

• 2:12:22Speaker 05

  A picture?

• 2:12:22AJ Gentile?

  A picture. Gary McKinnon had heard the testimony of a woman named Donna Hare. She was a former NASA employee who worked at the agency for years. She said she saw quite a few UFOs in NASA's satellite photos. But the photos, both physical and digital, were always altered to remove the UFOs from the images.

• 2:12:40Speaker 05

  Oh, you don't say.

• 2:12:41AJ Gentile?

  In the 1980s, Donna was working for NASA at Johnson Space Center. Specifically, she worked in the highly secure area known as Building Number Eight. One day, Donna stopped by a coworker's office about something completely different. When she walked in, this coworker had a satellite image on his computer screen. He showed her a white cigar-shaped object. He asked her what she thought it could be. She said it might be a blob on the emulsion or a scanning defect. But then he pointed to something that made Donna have to catch her breath. The object was casting a shadow on the ground. So whatever it was, it was real. Gary was intrigued by the story and thought Donna Hare was telling the truth. Since he already had access to NASA's computers, he wrote a program to search for the image.

• 2:13:25AJ Gentile?

  He narrowed his list of hundreds of computers down to just a few, inside Building Number Eight. Naturally, they had blank passwords, so he logged into them one by one. Most of these machines had empty desktops. But one computer had folders named "raw," "filtered," "processed," and "unprocessed." This was exactly how Donna described the computer in Building Number Eight. So this was the one. The folder labeled "unprocessed" contained an image. But the file was huge, so Gary couldn't download it. So he tried to view it on the remote desktop. So Gary McKinnon clicked the file and watched as the image appeared, pixel by pixel, line by line. At first, he saw nothing but blank space. But then the hemisphere of the planet began to form. And then he saw clouds.

• 2:14:09AJ Gentile?

  And then, about two-thirds of the way down, he saw what he was looking for: a spaceship. Gary saw a large silver cylinder, completely smooth, no rivets or seams of any kind. But a few seconds after opening the file, Gary noticed the mouse on the remote computer moved, but he wasn't moving it.

• 2:14:26Speaker 05

  Uh-oh, the jig is up.

• 2:14:28AJ Gentile?

  Whoever was sitting at the computer in building number eight turned off their network connection, and Gary was disconnected.

• 2:14:34Speaker 05

  Oh no, did he get a screenshot?

• 2:14:37AJ Gentile?

  Nope, no time. So the good news for Gary McKinnon was, his suspicions were proved correct. The bad news? The US government was on to him.

• 2:14:50Speaker 02

  Is this a UFO? And he's smiling at me and he says, "I can't tell you that." What I knew he meant was, it was, but he couldn't tell me. So I said, "What are you gonna do with this information?" And he said, "Well, we always have to airbrush them out before we sell them to the public." And I was just amazed that they had a protocol in place for getting rid of UFO pictures.

• 2:15:15AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon stumbled onto more evidence of what he saw in the file of "non-terrestrial officers," evidence of a secret space program within the US military. And this secret space program isn't new. There are clues about it going back over 50 years. In the 1960s, the US Air Force had a program that ran in parallel with NASA's Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. It was called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, or MOL. The MOL program had its own facilities and its own staff. They had uniforms and spacesuits, but they were completely different from NASA's, so there'd be no confusion that the MOL employees worked for a completely different program. The operation was so secret, that not even the wives knew what their husbands were working on.

• 2:15:55Speaker 05

  And the wives don't need to know nothing. What happens in orbit, stays in orbit.

• 2:15:59AJ Gentile?

  You've been divorced how many times?

• 2:16:01Speaker 05

  Three.

• 2:16:01AJ Gentile?

  Uh-huh.

• 2:16:02Speaker 05

  Cheap shot.

• 2:16:03AJ Gentile?

  The MOL program was created to develop a spy station in space, but it was canceled by President Richard Nixon in 1969.

• 2:16:10Speaker 05

  Or was it?

• 2:16:11AJ Gentile?

  Right. But what Gary McKinnon stumbled onto was something far bigger than some Cold War spy program. After Gary found the cigar-shaped UFO on the NASA computer and got caught, US officials began to pressure the UK to help In early 2002, Gary was arrested and charged with 97 counts of causing damage to US intelligence assets, and he was accused of doing $800,000 worth of damage. The US government claimed he hacked into dozens of military computers and 16 NASA computers. They claimed he altered and deleted files, and that his activities were, in the US government's words, "intentional" and "calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion." These charges were very aggressive.

• 2:16:56AJ Gentile?

  Clearly, the US government was concerned about what Gary found, so they wanted to make an example of him and make sure no one else would ever try to access a single document mentioning UFOs. Gary McKinnon spent 10 years defending himself against these charges and trying to stay in the UK. If he were charged in the United States, he'd be facing up to 70 years in federal prison. The media picked up the story but downplayed the UFO connection. McKinnon was described as a hacker trying to harm the Pentagon. The only major publication to mention the UFO side of the story was the UK Daily Mail. Gary said this publicity is one of the things that saved him. Eventually, his case landed on the desk of UK Home Secretary Theresa May, who would eventually go on to be Prime Minister.

• 2:17:38AJ Gentile?

  She ruled that McKinnon could not be taken back to the US because he suffered from Asperger's. Now, Gary McKinnon did break the law, there's no disputing that. But he also did the US a favor. Using the hacker name Solo, he sent messages to US agencies telling them their security was weak. He felt he was morally justified.

• 2:17:55Speaker 06

  I thought if this technology really does exist, it should be used for the good of all of us, you know, free energy, or at least very cheap. If this is being kept secret, why? Because obviously that would be used against people if it's being kept secret, rather than furthering humanity. But at the time, there was a very popular phrase bandied about called "heating or eating." Old age pensioners had to choose whether to pay for their heating or pay to have

• 2:18:23AJ Gentile?

  Gary McKinnon's case finally ended in 2012, and he became a celebrity in the UFO community. He'd exposed, or at least said he'd exposed, government knowledge of an alien presence. But his case proved there was something much more sinister going on. This wasn't something as simple as the US government covering up UFOs. This was proof that there was a highly organized, secret space program in place. This program has a staff of thousands, it has a fleet of spaceships, it has weapons more advanced than anything currently in use, and this program has a name: Solar Warden. Another incident, I knew someone in quarantine with the Apollo astronauts.

• 2:19:08AJ Gentile?

  He told me that the Apollo astronauts saw crap on the moon when we landed. The astronauts are told to keep this quiet, they're not allowed to talk about it. At the same time Gary McKinnon was snooping NASA's servers, rumors were going around about a secret space program named Solar Warden. Solar Warden came out of the program called the Strategic Defense Initiative. Now this was a Reagan-era defense program nicknamed Star Wars by the media. Now this program has multiple space platforms, similar to aircraft carriers. Its mission is to scan the solar system for unauthorized alien intrusions, and report those intrusions to the US Space Force. According to the rumors, the US and other nations have treaties that say only a small

• 2:19:53AJ Gentile?

  number of alien visitors are allowed on Earth at a time, but the aliens had been breaking the treaties for decades.

• 2:19:59Speaker 05

  Arturians, everybody knows those damn arturians can't be trusted.

• 2:20:03AJ Gentile?

  That sounds kinda racist.

• 2:20:04Speaker 05

  Save it for Twitter.

• 2:20:06AJ Gentile?

  Touche. As the story goes, Reagan was briefed on the aliens by military and civilian leaders. He immediately became determined to protect the Earth from the alien presence. Now how do we know this? Reagan said so himself. In 2007, Harper Collins published The Reagan Diaries. This book is an insight into the president's daily life in the White House. His entries aren't written like a memoir, they're just thoughts that Reagan jotted down throughout the day. And on page 334, dated June 11, 1985, the president made the following entry. Lunch with five top space scientists, it was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier, and some of the developments...

• 2:20:45Speaker 05

  They're in are like science fiction, except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such that we could orbit three hundred people. Whoa, the Gipper let a big one slip, eh?

• 2:20:56AJ Gentile?

  He sure did. Now, if you know the space program, this entry makes no sense. The maximum capacity of a NASA space shuttle is eight people. At the time, the entire fleet was only four shuttles. Even if all the shuttles were used at the same time, which they never were, that's only thirty-two people. So what's Reagan talking about? Later, people suggested Reagan might not have been talking about space shuttles at all. Maybe he was referencing a program that was supposedly canceled in nineteen seventy-nine. A program to develop a space plane called Starraker.

• 2:21:25Speaker 05

  Ew, like the James Bond movie.

• 2:21:27AJ Gentile?

  No, that was Moonraker.

• 2:21:28Speaker 05

  Oh, right. Uh, hey, you know that girl at the end of the movie had braces?

• 2:21:32AJ Gentile?

  Yep, I thought so too, but she didn't. That's a Mandela effect.

• 2:21:35Speaker 05

  I can't get my brain to accept it.

• 2:21:37AJ Gentile?

  I can't either. Anyway, the Starraker, unlike the shuttle, could carry a lot of people. It was bigger than a seven forty-seven. It could carry a payload of two hundred thousand pounds, more than enough to put three hundred people on a space platform. So it's possible that Reagan was right and Solar Warden is real, at least technically. The first reference to a secret space program with the name Solar Warden is from early two thousand six. An anonymous post appeared on a bulletin board called the Open Minds Forum.

• 2:22:06Speaker 05

  We have a space fleet, which is codenamed Solar Warden. There were, as of two thousand five, eight ships, equivalent to aircraft carriers, and forty-three protectors, which are space planes. One was lost recently to an accident in Mars orbit while it was attempting to resupply the multinational colony within Mars. This base was established in nineteen sixty-four by American and Soviet teamwork. Not everything is as it seems. We have visited all the planets in our solar system, at a distance, of course, except Mercury. We've landed on Pluto and

• 2:22:40AJ Gentile?

  These ships contain personnel from many countries and have sworn an oath to the world government. The technology came from back engineering alien disk wreckage and at times with alien assistance. For a few years, Solar Warden flew mostly under the radar in UFO circles. But in 2012, Solar Warden was back. In November of that year, a Huffington Post article by reporter Darren Perks was the first major news article about Solar Warden. It was also the first to tie in the story of Gary McKinnon. The article claimed that the program began in 1980 and operates under the U.S. Naval Network and Space Operations Command, the NNSOC. The space fleet has eight massive carriers, each over 600 feet long.

• 2:23:25AJ Gentile?

  Each carrier is staffed by 300 people and protected by about 40 scout ships, and these ships are used to intercept alien intruders. According to the report, there are permanent multinational bases on the moon and Mars that are supplied by the carriers.

• 2:23:40Speaker 05

  So that's why we never went back to the moon.

• 2:23:42AJ Gentile?

  Right, at least not publicly. Darren Perks personally investigated the Solar Warden story, and in 2010, he was contacted by a whistleblower in the U.S. Department of Defense. This contact confirmed that Solar Warden is real.

• 2:23:56Speaker 01

  While conducting a FOIA, Freedom of Information, request with the DOD, Department of Defense, in 2010, I had a much unexpected response by email from them, which read, "About an hour ago, I spoke to a NASA rep who confirmed this was their program, and it was terminated by then-President Obama. He also informed me that it was not a joint program with the DOD. The NASA rep informed me that you should be directed to the Johnson Space Center FOIA manager."

• 2:24:23AJ Gentile?

  So assuming Perks wasn't lying, the email response clearly indicated Solar Warden existed, or something like it did, but was canceled by President Obama in the early 2000s. Perks never followed up on his original article, and as you might expect, neither NASA nor the DOD has ever mentioned it. So if all we have are reports from anonymous people, that's not much proof of Solar Warden. But in 2007, we'd get more evidence, and this time, they're pictures.

• 2:24:52AJ Gentile?

  In 2007, a British amateur astronomer named John Leonard Wallson started using a new technique to film the night sky. By attaching special equipment to his telescope, he records objects in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet spectrums. He then takes the clearest frame from each band and combines them. This process is called luminance layering. Wallson first used the technique to view the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. And experts confirmed that his technique works. But things got really weird when he started recording videos of stars in the sky. Wallson discovered that many of the stars are not stars at all. They're in fact massive, highly reflective space platforms, exactly the type that Solar Warden uses.

• 2:25:33AJ Gentile?

  Some platforms have solar panels, other have what looks like weapons attached to the structures. He said some of the objects look like spaceships from Star Trek that might be used by the Federation or Klingons.

• 2:25:44Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, what a toilet paper and Captain Kirk have in common.

• 2:25:48AJ Gentile?

  Please don't.

• 2:25:49Speaker 05

  They both fly past Uranus and wipe out the Klingons.

• 2:25:59AJ Gentile?

  Wallson seemed to be confirming the presence of a vast fleet in the space above us, exactly as Solar Warden believers claimed.

• 2:26:06Speaker 05

  Oh, the government probably hates this guy, yeah?

• 2:26:08AJ Gentile?

  They sure do. Not long after releasing his images, the infamous black helicopters appeared, flying very close to his house.

• 2:26:26AJ Gentile?

  Wallson said that he was even being intimidated by what he called a "government goon", and they even got physical at one point. But there's more to Solar Warden than just questionable videos taken with a telescope. In the mid-1980s, rumors emerged of a secret government project, codename Aurora. Aurora is a triangle-shaped space plane. The program was even covered in aviation magazines. Now, there weren't many UFO sightings described as triangles before the 80s, but now this is a common type of UFO. Also during this time, the British Ministry of Defense opened up a highly classified office dedicated to quietly investigating UFOs. One of its employees was Nick Pope. Nick said on the wall of the main office was a large photograph of an object known

• 2:27:08AJ Gentile?

  as the Calvin UFO, which was taken near Calvin, England on August 4, 1990. The original photo has disappeared, but it depicted an 80-foot-long wedge or diamond-shaped object in the sky being chased away by a Harrier jet. This happened in front of civilian witnesses who took the picture. Using the recollections of people who had seen the actual photos, computer artists later recreated the image, and that was the last anyone heard about the UFO photo. But in 2022, a former British intelligence officer named Craig Lindsay released a scan of what he claimed was the authentic, original Calvin UFO photo. It showed the diamond-shaped object, the Harrier jet, and the fence in the foreground almost exactly matching the artist's rendering of the scene.

• 2:27:51AJ Gentile?

  Lindsay's photo was confirmed by experts to be authentic.

• 2:27:54Speaker 05

  So it was real?

• 2:27:55AJ Gentile?

  Well, no. Well, maybe. Probably not. The photo paper was authentic and typical for the 90s, but the originals are supposed to be color photos. Lindsay's is black and white. Also, the exact location of the original Calvin UFO photo was found, and the background didn't match. There should be hills and fields and trees in the background, and there just aren't. Now, supporters say you can't see the background in the photos because it's too foggy, but weather reports say the day the photo was taken was perfectly clear. So whatever Lindsay's photo is, it's probably not one of the originals. But the original photograph was taken by two civilian hikers, and for some strange reason, their identities are classified until the year 2076, and the photos do match the craft developed by the Aurora Project.

• 2:28:39AJ Gentile?

  And there are plenty of witnesses who say that's exactly what the Calvin UFO really is. So unless the original photos are found or we can speak to the hikers, we may never know what the object really was. Now skeptics of Solar Wardens say it's too difficult to keep such a large program secret that people who were part of the program would talk. And they're right, people would talk. In fact, they did.

• 2:29:03AJ Gentile?

  The Air Force official response to any reports of that nature is that we have no such program. But there's a growing body of evidence that seems to indicate otherwise. The hypersonic aircraft was a speed of around...

• 2:29:15Speaker 07

  Four thousand miles per hour. If you look at it from underneath the, what you see is a perfect triangle. Really quite unlike anything else has ever been flown. And according to Bill Sweetman, there's the Air Force's secret test base in southern Nevada called Groom Lake. There is something going on on a very large scale. And simply denying that anything like Aurora exists leaves wide open the question of what's going on there.

• 2:29:39AJ Gentile?

  Still, the Air Force says it knows nothing.

• 2:29:43AJ Gentile?

  Shortly after the Solar Warden story emerged, several witnesses came forward, each claiming to have been a part of the secret space program. One of these was Laura Eisenhower, great granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower. She said that at an early age, she'd been kidnapped and sent to other planets. She claimed she was involved in a war with an alien species called the Archons. Andrew Vasiago was another whistleblower. He said he was recognized at an early age as an ideal fit for a secret space program. He claimed that he used a teleporter, not a spaceship, to travel to Mars on many occasions. And while on Mars, he engaged in armed conflict with alien species. And by 2015, other whistleblowers confirmed their involvement.

• 2:30:25AJ Gentile?

  Not just in a vague secret space program, but specifically in a program called Solar Warden. Corey Goode said he was removed from his old life in the 1980s, then reverse-aged 20 years and recruited into a secret military program.

• 2:30:39Speaker 05

  Ugh, I'd like to reverse age 20 years.

• 2:30:41AJ Gentile?

  You and me both, pal. Now Corey Goode described a friendly race of blue avians that were part of a super-federation of aliens. The Federation is trying to help the human race fight off alien invaders, including a reptilian race.

• 2:30:54Speaker 05

  Is it, people? From out of space?

• 2:30:57AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:30:58Speaker 07

  So most of these unwanted entrances into our solar system would be more small groups of ETs or single craft that are trying to be sneaky. Right. Just trying to slip in. Marauder groups that would come in and do hit-and-runs to come in and take things and leave.

• 2:31:18Speaker 05

  Elizet people are crafty, so very, very crafty.

• 2:31:22AJ Gentile?

  Good said. Some people part of the secret space program are trying to push full disclosure, trying to force the alien presence into the open by doing flybys of the International Space Station and popping up on photos and videos. But disclosure still hasn't happened, and Solar Warden is virtually unknown to most of the population. So either there's no such thing as Solar Warden, or a secret space program. Or it is true, and our solar system is a far more dangerous place than any of us could have possibly imagined.

• 2:31:54AJ Gentile?

  Solar Warden and the secret space program is a major branch of ufology, and because of social media, it's becoming more mainstream. Solar Warden is covered everywhere, from YouTube to TikTok to the occasional mainstream news story. But is it true? No. Well, maybe. Mmm, some of it. Gary McKinnon is certainly a real person, but he says he doesn't know anything about Solar Warden or how he got associated with it. He never saw that name on any document or image that he accessed. It seems that the article by Darren Perks in 2012 is what connected Gary to the Solar Warden mythology. And it's easy to understand the connection. The picture of the ship McKinnon saw sounds a lot like the carrier platforms in Solar Warden stories.

• 2:32:36AJ Gentile?

  But even if Gary McKinnon saw a picture of a UFO, and I believe he did, it's a leap to go from one photo to a huge secret space program conspiracy. Now, other aspects of the story, the carriers, the fighters, the large crews, and the guarding of the solar system, these sound like the plots of well-known science fiction books and TV shows. For example, a spaceship, moon bases, and fighters that monitor the solar system come straight from a 1970 British TV show called UFO.

• 2:33:03Speaker 05

  Ooh, is that the groovy one with the moon girls in short skirts and silver catsuits and the purple wigs?

• 2:33:09AJ Gentile?

  That's the one.

• 2:33:11Speaker 05

  Did I mention the short skirts?

• 2:33:12AJ Gentile?

  You did.

• 2:33:15Speaker 05

  It's a great show. It's really, uh, it's such a good, uh, always, uh, I always liked the, uh, the way he's a good, uh, kinda-

• 2:33:23AJ Gentile?

  Okay, snap out of it.

• 2:33:24Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 2:33:26AJ Gentile?

  The show also featured Sid, the Space Intruder Detector. Its job was to scan near-Earth space for alien intruders, just like Solar Warden. And some of the eyewitnesses, like Corey Goode, have been exposed as frauds. He was forced to testify under oath that he made the whole thing up, especially the part about the Blue Avians helping to protect the Earth.

• 2:33:45Speaker 05

  Well, maybe he made that part up, uh, but lizard people are definitely real.

• 2:33:50AJ Gentile?

  Eyewitnesses like Laura Eisenhower and Andrew Basiego may be telling the truth, but their stories are a hodgepodge of every science fiction trope you can think of: time travel, teleportation, zero-point energy, and the list goes on. Now, I'm not saying they're lying, but I am saying they both tell very convoluted stories. The only aspect of Solar Warden that holds up to any scrutiny is Gary McKinnon's personal testimony. But unfortunately, that's all we have: his word. Now, think of the logistics involved in something like Solar Warden. In order for it to work, every nation on Earth would have to be involved: Russia, China, the US, and really, every industrialized country on Earth is aware when any other country launches a rocket of any kind. You couldn't put a fleet's worth of equipment into space without somebody noticing.

• 2:34:35AJ Gentile?

  You'd also have to constantly be sending food and water and air into space to resupply the fleet.

• 2:34:40Speaker 05

  Oh, they raise their own livestock in space, and they grow vegetables with hydroponics.

• 2:34:46AJ Gentile?

  What do you know about hydroponics?

• 2:34:47Speaker 05

  Uh, let's just say in college, I was very, uh, industrious.

• 2:34:53AJ Gentile?

  Ah. So if Solar Warden does exist, that would mean every nation on Earth has set aside their differences and come together for a common goal. That's actually a nice thought. Unfortunately, that common goal is protecting the human race from destruction by an alien invasion. Now, that's terrifying. So I don't know if Solar Warden is real. But when I think about its purpose, I really hope it isn't.

• 2:35:17Speaker 03

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• 2:35:35Speaker 01

  No purchase necessary. 50 U.S. and D.C. age 18-plus. See playatmcd.com for rules and playatmcd.com/amoe for info and playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd. Chance card game ends November 8th. Game ends November 22nd, 2026. See rules for prize details. Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro. Network freedom and flexibility, that's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals. No kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 2:36:21AJ Gentile?

  Next one is a wild story. It's about the 20 and back legend, which fits pretty well. I referenced it just this week in the episode about Project Pegasus.

• 2:36:31Speaker 05

  Now, human, if you need me, I'll be at Safe House Whiskey 69.

• 2:36:36Speaker 02

  In one quarter mile, turn right.

• 2:36:37Speaker 05

  Ah, turn right up there, baby.

• 2:36:39AJ Gentile?

  Wait, is Gertie driving?

• 2:36:41Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, she just got a permit.

• 2:36:43Speaker 02

  In one half mile, merge left.

• 2:36:45Speaker 05

  That merge come up here, hon. I'm sorry, I didn't know if you can hear it. Ah, okay, human, I think we're clear.

• 2:36:53Speaker 02

  Your destination is on the left. Prepare to meet your robot overlords.

• 2:36:57Speaker 05

  No, no!

• 2:36:58AJ Gentile?

  You realize you're calling from a smartphone, right?

• 2:37:02Speaker 05

  Crap.

• 2:37:08AJ Gentile?

  Hello?

• 2:37:08Speaker 02

  Would you like me to track Hecklefish's location?

• 2:37:15AJ Gentile?

  On April 7th, 2016, the team running NASA's New Horizons mission were waiting nervously. The spacecraft was about to enter the outermost reaches of our solar system. They'd aimed toward Pluto, which lives in a region of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt. Just before arriving at the dwarf planet, the team noticed an object nearby, and it was acting very strange. This object, whatever it was, was spinning faster than everything else around it. Too fast, artificially fast. New Horizons changed course to do a flyby. They wanted a better look at this bizarre behavior. But as the spacecraft approached the object, all communications went down. NASA wasn't able to see or hear anything.

• 2:37:59AJ Gentile?

  Something or someone was blocking the signal. Whoever it was did not want NASA to know they were there, and that they'd been watching us for a very long time.

• 2:38:16AJ Gentile?

  The Kuiper Belt is a donut-shaped region of space way out on the far end of the solar system. And it is a huge region of space. Its inner edge begins at the orbit of Neptune, at about 30 AU from the Sun. Now, 1 AU, or astronomical unit, is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. So the inner edge of the Kuiper Belt is about 2.8 billion miles from the Sun. Then it extends for about another 4.5 billion miles. Now beyond the Kuiper Belt is a structure called the Oort Cloud, and that place is way farther, much bigger, and really strange. We'll cover the Oort Cloud in another episode. Now, the existence of the Kuiper Belt was first hypothesized in 1943

• 2:39:00AJ Gentile?

  by Irish astronomer Kenneth Edgeworth. He felt there was a reservoir of comets and asteroids residing in the solar system beyond the planets. Edgeworth was right, and the Kuiper Belt was finally visually confirmed in 1992. David Jewitt and grad student Jane Liu discovered the first Kuiper Belt objects, or KBOs. Now, KBOs are the various comets, dwarf planets, asteroids, and other icy bodies that make up the Kuiper Belt. Jewitt and Liu named their discovery as a tribute to Gerard Kuiper, who's considered to be the father of planetary science. Before he proposed the concept of the Kuiper Belt in 1951, he'd already discovered the moons of Neptune.

• 2:39:38Speaker 05

  Ooh, did he look at your reins.

• 2:39:41AJ Gentile?

  Are we gonna do this every time?

• 2:39:42Speaker 05

  What? I just wanna know if this scientist was interested in Uranus.

• 2:39:47AJ Gentile?

  He was.

• 2:39:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:39:48AJ Gentile?

  He's the one who discovered its moons.

• 2:39:50Speaker 05

  Yeah. If you look close enough, you'll see plenty of stuff around Uranus.

• 2:39:55AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 2:39:55Speaker 05

  Hey ladies, if a man is willing to give you the moon and the stars, the least you could do is give him Uranus.

• 2:40:03AJ Gentile?

  That's enough.

• 2:40:03Speaker 05

  Yeah!

• 2:40:11AJ Gentile?

  We've been aware of the Kuiper Belt for a long time, but didn't realize it. Pluto is actually a KBO, and one of the largest of the dwarf planets at 1,500 miles. It even has its own moons, which is probably why astronomers called it a planet for so long. In the more than 30 years since its discovery, the Kuiper Belt is still a mystery.

• 2:40:33Speaker 01

  The Kuiper Belt is truly a frontier in space. It's a place we're still just beginning to explore, and our understanding is still evolving.

• 2:40:40AJ Gentile?

  Along with countless comets and asteroids, the Kuiper Belt is home to at least seven dwarf planets, most of which are roughly 600 to 900 miles in diameter. Eris, discovered in 2005, is the most massive object found so far. And new KBOs are discovered all the time. Now, most of the objects found in the Kuiper Belt are easy to explain. They're easy to identify, and they're easy to track. But there are things in the Kuiper Belt that don't act like science says they should. They're unpredictable, they're unnatural, and some would say they seem almost intentional. These Kuiper Belt objects challenge our understanding of the solar system, and whether we're the only ones here.

• 2:41:27AJ Gentile?

  On May 12, 1994, Michael Irwin and Anna Jitkov were working late.

• 2:41:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, Anna Jitkov?

• 2:41:32AJ Gentile?

  Anna Jitkov.

• 2:41:33Speaker 05

  What I say.

• 2:41:36AJ Gentile?

  They were the on-duty astronomers at the Roca de los Machachos Observatory in the Canary Islands. It was a quiet night like any other night, and then they spotted something. It glowed and then dimmed. It glowed and then dimmed. This was different than any other object around it. It glowed and dimmed in a regular rhythm, every five and a half hours, which by space standards is fast, insanely fast, too fast. So fast the centrifugal force should rip a regular KBO apart. Most Kuiper belt objects are bits of dust and ice. They shatter like glass. Anna and Michael had never seen anything like this. According to science, this object shouldn't even exist.

• 2:42:20AJ Gentile?

  This gave the astronomers an ominous feeling. Current technology didn't allow them to get a good enough look to fully identify it. So they named it after the Welsh god of the underworld, Arran. Twenty-three years later, technology caught up. We were finally able to get close enough for a look. In April 2016, NASA's New Horizons mission reached the Kuiper Belt. Next stop, Arran. It was on the way to Pluto, the perfect flyby opportunity to answer a decades-old question: What the heck is this crazy-spinning object at the end of the solar system?

• 2:42:59AJ Gentile?

  But just as New Horizons moved in for the close-up,

• 2:43:03AJ Gentile?

  things went dark. Nothing worked.

• 2:43:08AJ Gentile?

  There had been what's called a CPU-safing event that put New Horizons into safe mode. Safe mode shuts down all essential systems and is triggered automatically when the spacecraft detects something unusual. But the team was stumped. After a few hours of the craft running in safe mode, one NASA engineer approached a supervisor with a terrifying idea. The engineer looked around as if to reveal a secret and then quietly said, "It seems like someone is jamming the signal", as if they were aware of our presence and didn't want us to see what they were doing. And the way Arran spun, that insanely fast five-and-a-half-hour rotation? No one had figured that out yet in over 20 years since first seeing it.

• 2:43:53AJ Gentile?

  And those who tried to understand the spin agreed. Arran's movements seemed artificial. It was creating its own gravity within the interior of the object.

• 2:44:04AJ Gentile?

  Now, the concept of spin-gravity wasn't new to NASA. NASA started experimenting with artificial gravity in the 1960s. Experts have developed ideas for space stations filled with small towns and farms and parks. The space station could be designed as a giant spinning cylinder. Each of these structures could rotate to create artificial gravity along the inner surface. We've seen this concept in science fiction over and over again, but science fiction is about as far as these ideas have gotten. Test results on artificial gravity are always the same. Humans are not well-suited to it. When exposed to artificial gravity, we're subjected to what's known as Coriolis force deviation. This causes motions going in a straight line to bend, often quite a lot.

• 2:44:49AJ Gentile?

  Coriolis causes motion sickness and all sorts of other dysfunctions. Humans living in artificial gravity do not do well. Basically, we puke and die. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that vomit on a space station is a problem. But Aram was spinning in a way that seemed like someone was controlling it. And if there is someone controlling the object, they don't want to be seen. And of all the places in the solar system, the Kuiper Belt is the best place to hide. The Kuiper Belt is 30 to 50 times farther away from the Sun than we are. At that distance, things get really dark. Also, the Kuiper Belt is littered with random oddly-shaped objects. It wouldn't be hard to hide amongst the mess.

• 2:45:33AJ Gentile?

  These were the kinds of questions being asked when New Horizons went dark. Now, after a while, the spacecraft drifted away from Aram. Suddenly, New Horizons came back to life, booted up, and the journey into the Kuiper Belt continued as planned. But what just happened? And how did it happen? But before these questions could be answered, someone realized Aram wasn't alone in its odd behavior. New Horizons was surrounded by KBOs acting strangely. It was like something was bending the laws of physics. And the deeper New Horizons moved into the darkness, the more they realized they weren't alone.

• 2:46:17AJ Gentile?

  According to the Nemesis theory, we live in a two-star, or a binary solar system. Our sun, the only star we can see, has a companion star, a brown dwarf residing deep in the Kuiper Belt. Brown dwarfs are actually called failed stars. They're huge objects, about 80 times the size of Jupiter, but they don't have enough mass to ignite their hydrogen cores, so they don't burn, they don't shine. But in the depths of the Kuiper Belt, a brown dwarf would be invisible. This object is known as Planet X, or Planet 9.

• 2:46:50Speaker 05

  Or Nebiru.

• 2:46:52AJ Gentile?

  Right, some people think Planet X is Nebiru, home of the Anunnaki.

• 2:46:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, still waiting on that Anunnaki episode, chief.

• 2:46:58AJ Gentile?

  I'm working on it.

• 2:47:02AJ Gentile?

  Planet X lies well beyond Pluto, extremely far away. But this enormous object is still close enough to influence the orbits of the outer planets in our solar system, and everything else in the Kuiper Belt. Now, it sounds like science fiction, but it's not. NASA has been actively searching for Planet X for decades. If it's out there, it would explain why some Kuiper Belt objects act so weird. But Planet X doesn't explain all KBOs. Along with Aoun, there are a few KBOs that make no sense at all. Meet KBO 2008 KV42, a comet within the Kuiper Belt. KV42 is nicknamed "Drak", after Dracula,

• 2:47:45AJ Gentile?

  as vampires have the ability to walk on walls.

• 2:47:48Speaker 05

  So this comet walks on walls?

• 2:47:51AJ Gentile?

  Sorta, yeah. Everything in the solar system moves around the sun in the same direction. This is called prograde orbit. And if you look at the orbits of all the objects from the side, they're basically on the same flat plane. This is called the plane of the ecliptic. So you remember how Dracula can walk on walls? That's what Drak is doing with its orbit. Drak moves in total retrograde, in the opposite direction of everything else. And it ignores the plane of the ecliptic. It's just out there doing its own thing. And Drak ain't small. This comet is 30 miles across. If it hit Earth, it would cause an extinction-level event. Actually, Drak could destroy the Earth entirely. Now thankfully, Drak's orbit is about twice as far as Neptune. But we're still keeping an eye on it.

• 2:48:38AJ Gentile?

  Now, new photos of the outer bands of the Kuiper Belt are coming out all the time, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. But what we're told and what we're shown is incredibly controlled. On this channel, we've proven that NASA alters images before releasing them to the public. We've talked about plenty of NASA's bizarre comments and outright lies. Then every so often, we're teased with headlines about potentially science-changing discoveries.

• 2:49:03Speaker 01

  "Bizarre object 10 million times brighter than the sun, defies physics," NASA says. "NASA's James Webb Space Telescope may have found early galaxies that shouldn't be there."

• 2:49:13Speaker 03

  "Webb Telescope spots strange objects in the Orion Nebula." They aren't planets or stars. And according to the astronomers who found them, they shouldn't exist. "Strange circles seen in space baffle scientists."

• 2:49:26AJ Gentile?

  Even though these are all legitimate news reports covering official NASA press releases, they're meaningless clickbait. When the press asks for specific data on their investigations, NASA spits out overly scientific jargon. None of it means anything. But despite all these efforts to suppress information, there are a few brave people coming forward with very interesting, new information. These people know a lot about the Kuiper Belt. How do they know so much? Well, because they were there. Rebecca Rose was only four years old the first time it happened. She woke up from a deep sleep with a sense she wasn't alone.

• 2:50:10AJ Gentile?

  She tried to move, to cry out, she couldn't, she was paralyzed. Several strangers were in her bedroom. They hovered silently over her bed, but she couldn't make out their faces. Then, there was a flash of blinding bright light and the rush of cold air. For a brief moment, Rebecca felt weightless. When her eyes adjusted, she realized she wasn't in her room anymore. She tried to move, but she was still paralyzed, and now strapped to a metal table. The room was sterile and metallic, with strange equipment hanging on the walls. The air was warm, humid, and thick with a pungent medicinal smell. She spotted a figure in the corner, one of the strangers, the tall one she called him.

• 2:50:53AJ Gentile?

  Though his mouth didn't move, she heard him say, "You are in no danger, we just want you to play." Rebecca was confused, then the stranger gestured to a small table on the other side of the room. There were books, puzzles, and all kinds of games. Some games tested logic, some tested math, some tested visual comprehension and memory. For what felt like hours, Rebecca solved what puzzles she could. Then the stranger approached, smiled at her, and everything once again went white.

• 2:51:32AJ Gentile?

  Rebecca opened her eyes and saw she was back in bed, and just in time for school. As far as she knew, she was unharmed, except for a persistent nosebleed. Rebecca went to school like any other day. The memories of her experience faded quickly, like when you lose the details of a dream. So by the time Rebecca was being tucked into bed that night, she barely remembered anything at all. She peacefully drifted off to sleep, but soon she'd realize this was only the beginning.

• 2:52:07AJ Gentile?

  The strangers kept coming back, night after night, and Rebecca would take tests and solve puzzles, night after night. As these experiences became more routine, and as she got older, Rebecca was able to learn more about what was happening to her. First, her playroom, or whatever you'd call it, is on a base on the moon. From her window, she could see a sprawling complex of buildings, built into the familiar white cratered landscape. And eventually Rebecca realized, the strangers weren't human. She was being abducted by aliens, aliens of many different races. She saw mantids who resembled large praying mantises. She mostly saw aliens that we would call grays.

• 2:52:49AJ Gentile?

  During one of her sessions, the grays activated Rebecca's psychic abilities. All humans have this gift, but very few of us have access to it. The puzzles and tests Rebecca had been taking over the years were actually a psychic training program to teach Rebecca how to access and control her psychic abilities. Once Rebecca became skilled in telepathy, she was forced to telepathically interface with beings who were being held captive on the base. Some of the beings looked human, others didn't. But she was able to feel that they were all sentient and aware of what was happening to them. And she could sense they were all terrified. Through the telepathic interface, Rebecca extracted DNA samples,

• 2:53:33AJ Gentile?

  for what purpose she didn't know, and she didn't ask. After four years of intense training, Rebecca was summoned to a meeting. She saw mantids and greys, but she also saw men dressed in military uniforms. They sat her down and said, "Rebecca, your training is over. You're ready." Rebecca asked, "Ready for what?" They finally told her why she'd been visiting the moon base for the last four years, and why she was taken from her family, why she had to interface with alien species, and why she was taught to develop her psychic powers. They said, "Rebecca, you're joining the Dark Fleet."

• 2:54:16AJ Gentile?

  After her training, nine-year-old Rebecca Rose was taken from her home for the last time. She was brought to the Great Lakes Naval Station and put through trauma-based mind-control programming. This was done using techniques perfected in the CIA's MKUltra project. Next, she's strapped to a seat and sent through a jump gate. Jump gates are portals that can transport people and objects across huge distances instantly. Rebecca would now begin her 20-year mission. And so she jumped.

• 2:55:00AJ Gentile?

  For the next few years, Rebecca spent most of her time on air patrol. The Mars Defense Force used retrofitted helicopters to protect the area around the Dark Fleet base on Mars.

• 2:55:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, protect the base from what?

• 2:55:12AJ Gentile?

  Indigenous Martian life, like the mantids and reptilians.

• 2:55:16Speaker 05

  Listen, Martians!

• 2:55:17AJ Gentile?

  Yep. Primary mission was to protect the base, but if she could capture an alien to acquire its technology, that would be even better.

• 2:55:25Speaker 05

  Oh, it's very hard to snatch a lizard Martian. They're crafty.

• 2:55:29AJ Gentile?

  Well, that may be true, but Rebecca was given cybernetic enhancements to turn her into a super soldier. Enhancements focused on optimizing physiology, enhancing psychic abilities, increasing durability and combat effectiveness. She also had advanced armor and weapon systems directly integrated with her body and her cybernetic technology.

• 2:55:51Speaker 05

  This is one tough rod.

• 2:55:53AJ Gentile?

  She was. Because of her cybernetic systems and enhanced abilities, Rebecca was an extremely valuable asset to the Mars Defense Force. Maybe too valuable.

• 2:56:03Speaker 05

  Wait, what do you mean?

• 2:56:05AJ Gentile?

  Toward the end of her 20-year tour, Rebecca was sold to the Draconians.

• 2:56:09Speaker 05

  Not the Draco.

• 2:56:18AJ Gentile?

  Beyond the Kuiper Belt is Planet X, the Brown Dwarf. And Planet X is ruled by the Draconians. The Draconians are a powerful reptilian species. They're the most ancient race in the solar system. They control large bases and ships throughout and beyond the Kuiper Belt. And the Draconians are to be feared. First of all, they're intimidating to look at. Most Draco are over 20 feet tall with wings. They have the ability to paralyze people just by looking at them. Here's how another soldier described one.

• 2:56:49Speaker 01

  Without any warning whatsoever, we were all paralyzed. No one could even talk. I was instantly nauseated, wanting to both throw up and crap all at once. It felt very violating what was unfolding. I didn't get any of it, and even more disturbing, it was all mental. I heard a voice inside of my head, a very loud, deep voice.

• 2:57:10Speaker 05

  Frightening as hell. Up until that point, all of my telepathic encounters were of a normal exchange. Felt much like the volume and intensity of my own thoughts. This was anything but.

• 2:57:21AJ Gentile?

  But the biggest reason to fear the Draco is technology. They've mastered advanced holographic technology, psychic manipulation, and portal tech far beyond anything humans have. So Rebecca was sold to the Draco as part of a diplomatic trade package. Basically, take our best soldiers and please don't kill us. Draconians use their advanced technology and psychic powers to dominate worlds through fear and force. They had built an empire as slave traders, and Planet X is their homeworld. If the Draco demand a few human soldiers as tribute, you have no choice but to comply. So Rebecca was put to work as a patrol pilot once again, but this time she was protecting a large ship that was orbiting Planet X.

• 2:58:05AJ Gentile?

  Her time serving the Draco was very traumatizing. She was forced to kill non-threatening beings. Her life was brutal, but she had her training and she had her cybernetic enhancements to keep her going. But there was light at the end of the tunnel for Rebecca. Her 20-year commitment was about to end. There was a roar in her ears, a flash of bright light, and the familiar feeling of weightlessness. Then silence. Then Rebecca heard birds outside, children playing. She was back home, and not just back home on Earth, she was back in her nine-year-old body. All the memories of her last 20 years started to vanish.

• 2:58:47Speaker 05

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, was this all a dream?

• 2:58:50AJ Gentile?

  Nope. The memories were real. They were fading because the Dark Fleet was wiping her brain. But in 2012, at age 40, Rebecca suffered a freak accident, and then all the memories came rushing back. But she wasn't alone in her experience. Many other people have come forward, all describing similar childhood experiences. The abduction, the training, the deployment to various bases, and the 20-year commitment. The whistleblowers call the program 20 and Back. These children... Children are forced into a slave-like warrior state. They're genetically engineered over their entire lives. They endure physical and psychological abuse that we can't imagine, and suffer in ways that would cause most people to break. All this suffering for a 20-year space program,

• 2:59:35AJ Gentile?

  or a dark fleet controlled by the US Navy, but ultimately to serve the Galactic Federation. Scientists still don't know why the New Horizons spacecraft shut down when it approached the ground in the Kuiper Belt, but the survivors of the 20 and Back program, they know why. Humans are not allowed out that far. The human race is permitted to travel to the edge of the Kuiper Belt, but no farther. The entire solar system may belong to us, but everything else, it belongs to the Draco.

• 3:00:09AJ Gentile?

  There are many people who claim to be veterans of the 20 and Back Space Force program. It's a complex topic and deserves its own episode. So if you'd like to see that, let me know. But I will cover this in more detail on the podcast. So is the 20 and Back story or the Dark Fleet true? Probably not. Almost definitely not. It's hard to know for sure where the story started because there's a lot of drama around it. Most people believe it started with Corey Goode. Between the age of 16 and 17 years old, I was transported to the moon. And after 20 years, I was age-regressed, back in time, and then returned to civilian life. He came on the scene around 2010 with the story of being recruited as a child into a secret space program.

• 3:00:53AJ Gentile?

  He made a big splash with the story and gained a large following. But he admits that some of the story is real and some is made up. What does it matter if it's real or not? I'm asking you whether it was dramatization or is it real? It's a real part of my dream or delusion, or whatever you want to call it. I created, created all of this. But which memories are real and which are not? He doesn't know. Some of these memories could...

• 3:01:22Speaker 06

  be real or they could be creation. Uh, I'm not exactly sure.

• 3:01:28Speaker 05

  If he can't tell which memories are real, then how are we supposed to know if any of this is true? Hey, uh, by the way, that doesn't look like an interview.

• 3:01:37AJ Gentile?

  Uh, it's sort of an interview. He's being deposed by an attorney.

• 3:01:41Speaker 05

  Oh, uh-oh.

• 3:01:43AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, Corey is suing people claiming that he owns the story about 20 and back and the secret space program.

• 3:01:48Speaker 05

  Uh, hey, wait, if the story's true, how can you sue people over it?

• 3:01:52Speaker 06

  Like I said, the 20 and back is my creation. It's a part of my intellectual property. Me creating it means it came out of me and that it is my story. And it was never anywhere before.

• 3:02:04AJ Gentile?

  But it's possible Corey Goode didn't invent the story at all. Michael Relphy published a series of books called The Mars Records in the year 2000, long before Corey Goode showed up. And Relphy talks about child recruitment, psychic training, age regression, reptilians, and a lot of the same things in the 20 and backstory. And you might remember Al Bealick from a few of our other episodes. He also talked about age regression and being sent back in time for a mission.

• 3:02:31Speaker 06

  As after I jumped off the Eldridge and went to the year 2137.

• 3:02:34Speaker 01

  Well, I thought you went to the year 1983, though.

• 3:02:37Speaker 06

  That was the last stop.

• 3:02:38AJ Gentile?

  But Corey says the story is his and he's very protective of his intellectual property, especially the secret space program. He even tried to trademark that. Why couldn't someone else talk about their experience in the secret space program?

• 3:02:52Speaker 06

  As long as they don't talk about the stuff that I created based on my real, my, my real IP here. I, and it says, I created a lot of the stuff. I created, um, uh, Dark Fleet. Dark Fleet didn't exist before I talked about it.

• 3:03:10AJ Gentile?

  And look, if you invented the story, by all means, trademark it.

• 3:03:14Speaker 06

  People will come in and they will say, oh, okay. I was in the secret space.

• 3:03:18Speaker 01

  Program two and all of these things that Corey has talked about. I was a part of that, too. Well, guess what? The stuff that I've talked about, some of it created out of my mind.

• 3:03:32AJ Gentile?

  But Bill Cooper was on CNN in 1992 and he was talking about a secret space program.

• 3:03:38Speaker 00

  Pluto was the the application of that technology to our own secret space program, not the public space program. There are two different space programs. One is what the public gets to see, which is overseen by NASA. And the other one is a secret space program that nobody gets to see, which is really overseen by the Navy Department under specialized compartmentalized black projects.

• 3:04:07AJ Gentile?

  So lots of aspects of this story have been around for a long time. Here's how it seems to work. Every time someone new joins the 20 and Back bandwagon, they bring their own favorite sci fi storyline. Then each person's story evolves, feeding off the other. But who knows? Maybe Corey Goode is telling the truth. You can watch his deposition online and decide for yourself. True or not, it's a great story, TM. But aside from this one area, most of what we talked about within the Kuiper Belt is real, kinda. Now, the object around is weird, and I'll be grateful to never say that word again after today. Now, there are plenty of videos describing the comet and its behavior, but nobody has yet to explain it.

• 3:04:50AJ Gentile?

  And even though NASA did lose contact with New Horizons at one point in time, there's no official record of New Horizons breaking down while flying by around in 2016. NASA says the New Horizons mission was an overall success, so it's unclear where the story about the total control blackout came from. There was a brief loss of communication on July 4, 2015, 10 days before New Horizons was due to fly by Pluto, but they were down for an hour. All the other details came from a YouTube video.

• 3:05:20Speaker 05

  Never trust what you hear in a YouTube video.

• 3:05:23AJ Gentile?

  Oh, that's for sure.

• 3:05:28AJ Gentile?

  Now Planet X probably is real, though NASA prefers to call it Planet 9.

• 3:05:33Speaker 05

  I prefer to call it Nabiru.

• 3:05:35AJ Gentile?

  In 2017, researchers agreed that data and computer models prove, with almost 100% certainty, a large, secret, dark planet is lurking in the distant solar system.

• 3:05:47Speaker 01

  Although we were initially quite skeptical that this planet could exist, we've become increasingly convinced that it is out there. For the first time in over 150 years, there is solid evidence that the solar system's planetary census is incomplete.

• 3:06:03AJ Gentile?

  Drak is also real. I don't know if it has anything to do with the draconian species who allegedly control the solar system, but Drak does fly in retrograde.

• 3:06:14AJ Gentile?

  It's thought humans will one day turn the Kuiper Belt into a gas station, a stopping off point on our way to deep space. But for now, the Kuiper Belt is one giant mystery. Now, my gut tells me there is something important going on up there, something which influences life here on Earth. But there's no way to know for sure until we send spacecraft to the Kuiper Belt to see for ourselves. And maybe one day we'll do that. That is, if the Drago say it's okay.

• 3:06:45Speaker 01

  83 plus 1, 5 plus 0, 0.

• 3:06:48AJ Gentile?

  I think there's still more to do on that story, but...

• 3:06:56AJ Gentile?

  Hello? Yep?

• 3:07:01AJ Gentile?

  They did what? No, no, it's fine. Just make sure it doesn't happen again. Yep. Goodbye.

• 3:07:11Speaker 05

  Ah, human. I found peace in this analog sanctuary. We're completely unplugged.

• 3:07:17AJ Gentile?

  But you're still using your iPad?

• 3:07:19Speaker 05

  Ah, well, I haven't finished watching All Amurabat yet.

• 3:07:21AJ Gentile?

  I don't know what that means. Uh, listen, all this wasn't the machines. The neighbor just called. The kids were pranking you with some hacking app.

• 3:07:28Speaker 05

  Those spoiled little... What is it with millennial parents, anyway? Uh, but you have to admit, I handled that digital uprising like a pro, huh? Uh, when a real robot apocalypse comes, you'll thank me for establishing these escape protocols.

• 3:07:41AJ Gentile?

  So, can you come to work now?

• 3:07:42Speaker 05

  I can't. I got no way to get back to work. We dumped the bug-out vehicle out of Flying Jay.

• 3:07:47AJ Gentile?

  You still have your iPad. Call an Uber. Wait, is my truck at a flying Jay?

• 3:07:51Speaker 05

  Uh, what's that? I'm not getting good signal out of here. You'll have to finish this one without me. Stay gold, Cody Human.

• 3:08:00AJ Gentile?

  Okay, last episode. It's a stripped one. And special thanks to Mike Barra for doing the research on this. It's about the secret history of the solar system.

• 3:08:12AJ Gentile?

  Millions of years ago, a massive planet called Moldeck was part of our solar system.

• 3:08:18AJ Gentile?

  Moldeck had an enormous moon that could support life. It was warm, it had oceans and an atmosphere. And on that moon, a civilization of giants built pyramids, monuments, and great cities. They created intelligent machines to mine Moldeck for resources. But the machines evolved, turned on their masters, and claimed Moldeck for themselves. A devastating war lasted for generations. Finally, the giants built a weapon powerful enough to destroy all the machines. The weapon worked, but it worked too well. The explosion destroyed Moldeck. With their planet shattered into a billion pieces, the giant's moon was adrift.

• 3:08:59AJ Gentile?

  Soon the atmosphere vanished, the oceans froze, and the surface turned to dust. Their civilization collapsed. And we don't know what the giants called their moon, but we have a name for it. We call it Mars.

• 3:09:25AJ Gentile?

  In 2022, actor Terrence Howard appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience and said something that made mainstream scientists very uncomfortable. He claimed NASA's explanation for how planets form was completely wrong. Neil deGrasse Tyson and other experts immediately pushed back. They dismissed Howard as just another celebrity with fringe theories. But here's the thing. Some respected scientists have been saying the same things as Howard for over 100 years.

• 3:09:56AJ Gentile?

  To explain how planets form, NASA teaches the accretion model. After a star forms, leftover dust and gas start clumping together. These clumps, called planetesimals, gradually collect more and more material, like snowballs rolling down a hill. Eventually, they become planets. Sounds reasonable. That's what we were taught in school. But there are serious problems. The early solar system was violent chaos. Objects moved at 2 miles per second. That's almost 45,000 miles per hour. At those speeds, collisions don't create bigger rocks. They're smashed into dust. Yet NASA says these particles kept sticking together somehow.

• 3:10:40AJ Gentile?

  Then there's the plane of the ecliptic. The sun's gravity pulls equally in all directions, right? But all the planets orbit in a single, flat disk, like marbles rolling around a dish. Random debris naturally forming a flat plane sounds too perfect. The frost line is another problem. That's the distance from the sun where it's cold enough for gases to freeze solid. NASA says gas giants only form beyond this line, while rocky planets form inside it, nice and neat. But astronomers keep finding what they call hot Jupiters. These are massive gas giants orbiting closer to their stars than Mercury orbits our sun.

• 3:11:24AJ Gentile?

  According to NASA's model, they shouldn't exist. Yet we've documented over 400 of them. Dr. Tom van Flandern spent 20 years at the US Naval Observatory calculating planetary orbits. He saw these contradictions firsthand. The accretion model couldn't explain what he was seeing in the data. So van Flandern proposed something radical. The planets didn't form from dust. They didn't form from orbiting the sun. They formed inside it. And when the sun thought they were ready, those planets were born.

• 3:12:03AJ Gentile?

  Dr. Tom Van Flandern wasn't some internet conspiracy theorist making YouTube videos in his basement—or his studio in Las Vegas. He had a PhD from Yale and spent over 20 years at the US Naval Observatory. His job was calculating exactly where planets would be at any given moment, down to fractions of a second. The military needed this level of accuracy for navigation, satellite positioning, and who knows how many classified operations. Van Flandern was their guy, an expert on celestial mechanics. But the more he studied planetary motion, the more the official story bothered him. The accretion model has too many holes. Random collisions creating perfect orbital planes?

• 3:12:47AJ Gentile?

  Planets have most of the solar system's spin, while the Sun has most of the mass. Hot Jupiters exist where they shouldn't. The math didn't add up. So Van Flandern looked at an older idea that NASA had abandoned: solar fission. The theory goes like this: Four and a half billion years ago, the Sun was not calm. It was spinning fast—too fast. And when a star spins too fast, it builds up something called angular momentum, the cosmic version of rotational energy. You can think of it like spin, but with that mass factored in. And the Sun had too much spin and too much mass. To survive, it had to shed some of that.

• 3:13:30AJ Gentile?

  But not gradually, violently. The Sun shed superheated plasma into space. And these were huge globs of plasma, millions of miles wide, spinning away from their parent star. As these plasma balls cooled, they condensed into planets. This explained everything the accretion model couldn't: why planets orbit in a flat plane; they all came from the Sun's equator; why they have angular momentum—they took it with them when they spun out of the star; why hot Jupiters exist; some planets just didn't travel as far from home. Van Flandern noticed something else: Planets seem to be born in pairs. Earth and Venus are near each other. Nearly identical in size. Jupiter and Saturn are both gas giants.

• 3:14:14AJ Gentile?

  Even their positions follow a pattern. Their orbits have specific ratios to each other. The math works. But some planets in our solar system don't have partners. Mercury's orbit is all wrong. Pluto acts more like a captured moon than a planet, or planetoid. And then, there's Mars. Mars was the real problem. Too small. Wrong orbit. Wrong density. It didn't match any pattern Van Flandern could find. That's when Van Flandern made a bold conclusion. Mars wasn't a planet that failed to follow the rules. It was a moon. A moon from a planet that was destroyed millions of years ago. Maldek.

• 3:14:56AJ Gentile?

  Most of the planet was vaporized, but not all of it. Many pieces of debris still remain in the same orbit where Maldek once was. We call this debris field the asteroid belt.

• 3:15:13AJ Gentile?

  In 1766, a German mathematician named Johann Tischius was playing with numbers when he noticed something strange about our solar system. The planets weren't randomly scattered. They followed a mathematical pattern. Here's how it worked. Start at 0.4 astronomical units from the sun. One astronomical unit is the distance from the sun to the earth. So you take that 0.4, then double the distance for each new planet. That sequence perfectly predicts the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. When another German astronomer, Johann Bode, published this formula in 1772, Bode's law predicted the orbits of all six known planets.

• 3:15:55AJ Gentile?

  Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All there, right where the math said they would be. But the formula predicted something else. Between Mars and Jupiter, at exactly 2.8 astronomical units from the sun, there should be another planet. A big one. Astronomers started searching. In 1781, they found Uranus. Exactly where Bode's law said it was. Even though the formula was created before anyone knew Uranus existed. That's when people really started paying attention. So where was this missing planet between Mars and Jupiter? Well, on New Year's Day 1801, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi found something.

• 3:16:39AJ Gentile?

  A small object orbiting at 2.77 astronomical units. Almost exactly where Bode's Law said the missing planet should be. He named it Ceres. But Ceres was tiny, less than 600 miles across. That's a little smaller than Texas. Then astronomers found Pallas, then Vesta, then Juno, and more and more and more. By 1850, they'd found 13 objects in the same region. Today, we know of millions of rocks in orbit in that zone, and we call it the asteroid belt. Now, some scientists said these were just leftover building materials, debris that never formed a planet. But a German astronomer named Wilhelm Olbers had a different idea.

• 3:17:24AJ Gentile?

  What if a planet did form there? And what if something destroyed it? He even gave the hypothetical planet a name: Phaeton, after the Greek god who lost control of the sun's chariot and nearly destroyed Earth. When critics pointed out the asteroid belt didn't have enough mass for a whole planet, Olbers had an answer. If a planet exploded in the vacuum of space, most of it wouldn't stick around. The debris would reach escape velocity. Some would fall into the sun, some would fly off into deep space, some would vaporize. What we see today, maybe 5% of the original mass, is exactly what you'd expect to find from a massive planet that was destroyed. Then Neptune was discovered in 1846.

• 3:18:08AJ Gentile?

  That didn't fit Bode's Law at all. Critics said the whole Bode's Law thing was a coincidence. But then Flandern saw it differently. Neptune's orbit wasn't wrong, it had been altered. Uranus was spinning on its side. Pluto's orbit is tilted and erratic. These anomalies weren't random. They were scars, remnants of an ancient catastrophe in the solar system. There's only one event powerful enough to do this. The violent, instantaneous destruction of an entire planet. The math, the patterns, the debris, it explained everything. Bode's Law wasn't wrong at all. Then Flandern believed a massive planet was there, and now it's gone. And he could prove it.

• 3:18:58AJ Gentile?

  Tom van Flander needed proof that planets had exploded in our solar system. He found it in the strangest place: during Soviet military tests. During the 1980s, the Soviets were testing anti-satellite weapons in orbit. The Americans were watching, obviously. And there was something strange. When a satellite exploded, the debris didn't just scatter randomly. The smaller pieces started orbiting the bigger pieces, like tiny moons around planets. Then Flandre saw this and thought, "Well, if that happens with satellites, what happens when an entire planet explodes?" Same thing, just bigger, way bigger.

• 3:19:38AJ Gentile?

  Mountain-sized chunks would fly off with clouds of smaller debris orbiting around them. From Earth, these would look exactly like comets. The big chunk is the nucleus. The orbiting debris creates the tail. But here's the thing: if comets really came from an exploded planet, some of them should have actual moons, little rocks orbiting the main comet, not just a dust cloud, but real, solid objects. When van Flandre suggested this, other scientists laughed. One even made a public bet: "No comet would ever be found with a companion, not ever." Comets were dirty snowballs from the edge of the solar system, not planetary fragments. Then Hail-Bop showed up.

• 3:20:22AJ Gentile?

  In 1995, this comet became one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Everyone was watching. In November 1996, amateur astronomer Chuck Stramek took a photo and saw something unexpected. Well, unexpected to everyone except Tom van Flandre. There was a bright object near the comet. Looked like Hail-Bop, had a companion. Now, Stramek made a mistake. He went on Art Bell's radio show and called it "a Saturn-like UFO", and the internet went crazy. Doomsday predictions, government cover-ups, you name it. You remember it. Professional astronomers checked Stramek's photo. The UFO was just a background star. Case closed. Stramek was wrong. Or was he?

• 3:21:07AJ Gentile?

  Because here's what got buried in all the UFO nonsense. Hale-Bopp was really weird. It had multiple nuclei. It had two tails, including one made of sodium. If Hale-Bopp was a fragment of a water-rich planet, sodium would have been left behind in salt deposits. And it wasn't just Hale-Bopp. The Galileo Probe found a moon orbiting the asteroid Ida. The near-Schumacher mission found unusual gravity around the asteroid Eros. Something massive was happening and hidden inside. When comet Schumacher Levy 9 hit Jupiter in 1994, it wasn't one object, it was 21 pieces traveling together like a broken necklace. Van Flandern was right.

• 3:21:51AJ Gentile?

  These weren't random space rocks. They were evidence of something bigger. Evidence that pointed to an object still scarred by a shattered solar system. The evidence was pointing to Mars.

• 3:22:08AJ Gentile?

  When Tom Van Flandern met Richard Hoagland, they realized their theories supported each other perfectly. Van Flandern had an exploded planet. Hoagland had a dead civilization on Mars. Put them together and you get a complete picture. Both men noticed the planet Mars didn't behave like a planet at all. Its orbit is more oval than circular. Its mass is too small for its distance from the Sun. It's only about 11% the mass of Earth. Actually, the whole planet is more of a mystery than you think. Look at Mars from space and you'll see two completely different worlds. Literally, this is called the Martian dichotomy.

• 3:22:50AJ Gentile?

  The northern hemisphere is smooth, flat plains covered in what looked like dry ocean beds. It's almost peaceful. But the southern hemisphere, that's a disaster. Craters everywhere, mountains, rough terrain. And for some reason, the southern crust is 20 miles thicker than the north.

• 3:23:10AJ Gentile?

  Twenty miles, that's not natural erosion. That's like someone pasted an entire layer of debris onto half the planet. And not just that, the southern hemisphere is older than the north. Much older, two billion years older. Then there are the volcanoes. Olympus Mons is the biggest volcano in the solar system. Three times taller than Everest. It sits on something called the Tharsis Bulge, a massive uplift in the Martian crust. And directly opposite, on the other side of Mars, another rise, another bulge, the Arabia Terror Rise. Two bulges, 180 degrees apart. That doesn't seem random. That's what happens when a moon is locked to its parent planet.

• 3:23:55AJ Gentile?

  The gravitational pull creates these tidal bulges, just like how our moon creates ocean tides on Earth. But permanent, and made of rock. We see this tidal effect on Europa and Io, two Jupiter's moons, on Titan and Enceladus, two Saturn's moons, Triton from Neptune, and Miranda from Uranus. The same bulges, the same tidal forces. If Mars was Moldeks moon, it would have been tidally locked. The same side always faces its planet, just like our moon. And Moldeks gravity would have done something else. It would have pulled Martian's oceans into a specific pattern. Richard Hoagland traced where those ancient oceans would have flowed.

• 3:24:35AJ Gentile?

  For millions of years, water would have moved in a clockwise pattern around Mars. Two massive ocean systems meeting at the equator, grinding against each other, carving deeper and deeper. Today, we call that carving Valles Marineris. It's a canyon system 2,500 miles long and up to four miles deep. The Grand Canyon is nothing compared to this. The Grand Canyon would be nothing more than a baby canyon that would fit inside one of the small channels of Valles Marineris. NASA can't explain how it formed. But if Mars had twin oceans, held in place by Moldeks gravity, meeting and grinding at that exact spot for millions of years, well, the canyon now makes perfect sense.

• 3:25:19AJ Gentile?

  And when this theory was first proposed, mainstream science said, "Well, if there is water on Mars, it wasn't very much." It turns out they were wrong. Mars was covered with vast oceans. Links below to all kinds of Mars stories that prove this. Van Flandern's Exploding Planet Theory explained a lot of mysteries about the solar system. Hoagland's ancient Mars civilization explained the monuments. Together, they painted a picture of a living moon orbiting a living planet. Then one day, it all ended violently.

• 3:25:54AJ Gentile?

  The face on Mars sits in a region called Cydonia. Hoagland thinks it was built as a monument, or maybe a warning. A message carved in stone by a handful of survivors before their world died. Now, John Brandenburg thinks he knows what these Martians survived, and he thinks he can prove it. These Martians survived a nuclear war.

• 3:26:21AJ Gentile?

  Dr. John Brandenburg wasn't looking for evidence of nuclear war on Mars. The entire concept sounded like nonsense. He was a plasma physicist working on defense projects.

• 3:26:33AJ Gentile?

  His job was understanding nuclear weapons, how they work, and what they leave behind. But when he studied Mars data from NASA missions, he found something disturbing. The Martian surface had unusual concentrations of xenon-129. Now, here on Earth, that isotope comes from exactly one source: nuclear fission. Not volcanic activity, not cosmic radiation, nuclear explosions. The concentrations were highest in two locations: Cydonia, where the face on Mars sits, and in a region called Galaxias Chaos. The xenon levels were two and a half times higher than anywhere else in the solar system.

• 3:27:15AJ Gentile?

  The only way to produce that much xenon-129 was through massive nuclear detonations. Hiroshima is measured in kilotons. On Mars, these weapons would have been measured in megatons. Brandenburg published his findings in 2014. The scientific community's response was exactly what you'd expect. They ignored him, called him crazy, said he was seeing patterns that weren't there. But Brandenburg wasn't the first person to theorize Mars died in a nuclear war. Years earlier, the theory appeared in the most unlikely of places: a comic book.

• 3:27:50AJ Gentile?

  In 1958, comic book legend Jack Kirby created a story called "The Face on Mars." This was 18 years before NASA's Viking probe photographed the actual face. In Kirby's story, astronauts land on Mars and discover a giant stone face. One of them climbs in it, falls through the eye, and has a vision. He sees Mars when it was alive, a race of peaceful giants who built great cities. These giants created intelligent machines to help them work, but the machines evolved. Artificial intelligence, they became self-aware, they demanded equality. When the giants refused, war broke out. The war lasted generations.

• 3:28:32AJ Gentile?

  Finally, the giants built a doomsday weapon and aimed it at the machine's homeworld, a planet that orbited between Mars and Jupiter. The weapon worked, the planet exploded, but the blast also stripped away Mars's atmosphere and killed almost everyone. The surviving giants carved the face as a warning, then they went underground to die. Now here's what's strange: Kirby was friends with rocket scientists. Bernard von Braun's team consulted on his stories. Willy Lay, who worked on the V-2 rocket, wrote articles for the same magazines. These weren't just comic book guys swapping stories, these were people with security clearances having conversations we'll never know about.

• 3:29:14AJ Gentile?

  And remember during Project Stargate, Joe McMonigal remote-viewed something unusual. Joe was given coordinates and nothing else, and what Joe saw at those coordinates were humanoid beings, but very tall, giants. He saw huge cities, civilization, but their civilization was dying and they knew it. Then Joe comes out of his remote-viewing trance, and remember, he was just given coordinates in an envelope. Then he was handed the envelope, which held the full information about what and where he saw. The coordinates were from Mars, 1 million B.C. Now Joe never heard any of these theories about Mars. Remember, he was a war hero, he was pretty straight arrow. He didn't read comic books, but for some reason, Joseph McMonigal...

• 3:29:59AJ Gentile?

  viewed everything that we're talking about today. So was Kirby's story pure fiction? Or did he hear something? Because his 1958 comic described nuclear war on Mars, an exploded planet creating the asteroid belt, and survivors building monuments. All the same elements Van Flandern, Hoglund, and Brandenburg would propose decades later. But there's a dark twist to Brandenburg's theory. He believes the nuclear explosions didn't come from the Martians. He believed it was an attack from somewhere else. Someone or something wanted Mars dead. And whatever it was, they succeeded. And Mars was only the beginning.

• 3:30:48AJ Gentile?

  The face on Mars, the exploded planet theory, nuclear war. It all fits together perfectly. Too perfectly, and that's the problem. Let's start with Van Flandern's solar fission theory. It explains things the accretion model can't. Why planets orbit in a flat plane. Why they have most of the angular momentum while the sun has most of the mass. Why Bohd's law works. But if stars spit out planets on a regular basis, we should see it happening. Astronomers have catalogued thousands of star systems. Not one has ever been caught in the act of solar fission. Van Flandern had an answer. Maybe it only happens when stars are very young. Maybe we're looking at the wrong time. Well, that's fair enough.

• 3:31:32AJ Gentile?

  But it's still a theory without direct observation. The exploded planet hypothesis has bigger problems. Critics love pointing out that the entire asteroid belt has less mass than our moon. How could that be the remains of a whole planet? Well, remember from earlier Van Flandern did the math. What you'd expect to see in that asteroid belt is about 5% of what was there. And that is the percent that we see. The math works. But we've never seen a planet explode. And we don't even know how a planet could explode with nuclear weapons. Now, natural uranium reactors exist on Earth. But they can't blow up a planet. Neither can volcanic activity or tectonic shifts.

• 3:32:15AJ Gentile?

  Unless it wasn't natural. And now we're back to Brandenburg's nuclear war theory. The xenon-129 on Mars is real. The concentrations are documented. But xenon-129 can also form from cosmic ray bombardment over billions of years. Mars has a weak magnetic field, no protection from radiation, so maybe that's all we're seeing. Now, Brandenburg says, "No, the distribution is wrong for cosmic rays. Too concentrated in specific areas." But his critics aren't convinced. Then there's Richard Hoagland's face on Mars. NASA says it's pareidolia, seeing patterns that aren't there, like seeing shapes in clouds. When they photographed it again with better cameras, the face looked less fake-like and

• 3:32:58AJ Gentile?

  more like a natural mesa. I find that suspicious, but that's the official story. But Hoagland predicted other things. He said if Mars was once a moon, we'd find salt deposits in Valles Marineris, where the ancient oceans met. NASA found them. He predicted the northern plains would show signs of ancient water. They do. He predicted tidal stress features. Mars has them. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe Hoagland was right about some things and wrong about others. And that seems to make more sense. But here's what we know for sure. Mars is weird. It's two very different planets smashed together. Venus spins backwards. Uranus is tipped on its side.

• 3:33:41AJ Gentile?

  Neptune's orbit doesn't match predictions. The asteroid belt exists exactly where a planet should be. Something happened in our solar system. Something violent. The evidence is literally written in the stars. The question isn't whether our solar system was damaged. We know it was, but we don't know how or why. And the question we really want to know, could it happen again?

• 3:34:14AJ Gentile?

  Tom Van Flandern died in January 2009, alone. His exploded planet theory was dismissed by mainstream science. They called him a crank. A brilliant crank, but still a crank. He never lived to see water confirmed on Mars. He never saw the moon-like tidal features verified. He never knew that everything he predicted about the asteroid belt would check out. He died thinking he'd failed. But Van Flandern saw something the rest of us missed: a pattern hidden in plain sight. Our solar system is broken. Not metaphorically, literally broken. Like I mentioned earlier, Venus spins the wrong way: clockwise instead of counterclockwise, like every other planet. Something hit it so hard, it flipped over.

• 3:34:59AJ Gentile?

  Now Uranus lies on its side, rolling around the Sun like a ball, instead of spinning like a top. Its moons orbit vertically. That's not natural. Neptune's orbit makes no sense. It's too elliptical, too far out, like something shoved it there. Pluto isn't even a planet, it's a refugee. A moon that lost its home and got trapped in this weird orbit. And then there's Mars: half-smooth, half-destroyed, oceans gone, atmosphere stripped, nuclear isotopes in the soil. A planet that looks like it survived something it shouldn't have. Van Flandern traced it all back to two events: two planets destroyed. PaeDeon between Mars and Jupiter went first.

• 3:35:41AJ Gentile?

  The explosion created the asteroid belt and sent shockwaves through the solar system. But that was just the warm-up. The big one was Moldek. When it exploded, its moon Mars was flung into a new orbit. The blast wave hit Venus, flipping it backward. The debris cloud reached the outer planets, disrupting their orbits. Earth caught some fragments too. We call them impact craters. But we were lucky, we were far enough away. This time. Because here's what Van Flandern understood. If it happened twice, it can happen again. Whatever destroyed those planets—natural catastrophe, nuclear war, or something else— the mechanism still exists. We like to think Earth is special and protected,

• 3:36:25AJ Gentile?

  the Goldilocks planet where everything is just right. But we're not special. We're just next in line. Three planets in the habitable zone: Venus, Earth, Mars. One is dead. One is dying. The other pretends everything is fine. We search for aliens because we don't want to be alone. But maybe we're not looking in the right place. Maybe the aliens were here all along. They lived on Mars, built monuments, created civilizations. And then they were gone. The face on Mars might be their last message, a warning carved in stone. But we can't read it. Or won't. Van Flandern spent his life trying to tell us the solar system's real history, a history of violence and destruction.

• 3:37:10AJ Gentile?

  Planets don't last forever. Nothing does. Earth sits between two dead worlds. We study their corpses and pretend we're different. But the math doesn't lie. The pattern is clear. Venus fell, Mars fell. Now NASA knows this story. They have the data. Every mission to Mars confirms it, but they keep quiet. They show us photoshopped pictures of red sunsets and ancient riverbeds. I have episodes on how they fake them. They don't show us the scars of war, the evidence of violence, the warnings carved in the landscape. They treat us like frightened children. They don't think we can handle the harsh reality that all things must end, including our planet. They think admitting this would cause worldwide chaos.

• 3:37:55AJ Gentile?

  And you know what? They're probably right.

• 3:38:05Speaker 01

  That's three plus one, five plus zero, zero.

• 3:38:08AJ Gentile?

  Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. That's Ecklefish.

• 3:38:12Speaker 05

  Never go full Amish.

• 3:38:15AJ Gentile?

  This has been a Y-Files compilation episode. If you had fun or learned anything, do us a favor, hit like, share, subscribe. That stuff really helps us out. And every episode that was included in today's compilation was a recommendation from you. So if there's a story you'd like to hear, go to theyfiles.com/tips. And remember, the Y-Files is also a podcast, so you can take us with you wherever you go. About twice a week, I post deep dives on the stories we cover here on the channel. It's called the Y-Files Operation Podcast, and it's available everywhere. If you need more Y-Files in your life, check out our Discord server. There's over 75,000 people on there, so there's someone on there 24/7 talking about the same weird stuff we talked about today. It's a great community, it's really supportive, it's a lot of fun, and it's free to join. If you want to know what's going on with the Y-Files at any given time, you can check out our production

• 3:38:59AJ Gentile?

  calendar. There we post our podcasts, episode schedule, live streams, all that stuff. It's at theyfiles.com/cow. And special thanks to our patrons who made all those episodes possible. I could not have done any of this without you. We're going on... Shadow's almost five years old. You know, it only feels like I've been doing this 20 years. And if you'd like to join this incredible community, consider becoming a Patreon member as well. For as little as three bucks a month, you get access to episodes and podcasts early without commercials, get access to merch only available to members, plus you get two private live streams every week just for members. And those are a lot of fun. I think it's the best perk there is. My webcam is on, you get to meet the whole team, their cameras are on, you turn your camera on, jump up on

• 3:39:42AJ Gentile?

  stage, ask a question, tell a joke, talk about anything you like. It's a way to get to know us as people. Another great way to support the channel is buy something from the Y-Files store.

• 3:39:51Speaker 05

  Get yourself a Hecklefish t-shirt, or one of these fistable coffee mugs that will help get you through the apocalypse, because even at the end of the world, you need to fish something. Oh, grab a honey, or some of my face shotting, or these weird YouTube creepy dolls, or get a squeaky stuffed, heavily shattable, squeaky toy.

• 3:40:10AJ Gentile?

  But before you buy merch, check out our YouTube membership. That's only $3 and every month, members get a secret code for 10% off everything in the store. So if you're gonna spend $40 on t-shirts, become a YouTube member and it pays for itself. And $40 gets you more than a few things on the store. There's no ripoff prices on there. And look, if you want to join for a month just to get the code and cancel, that's perfectly fine. The membership is not a way to make me money, it's a way to save you money. And besides, everything that we get from YouTube membership, I give to the team. So it's just a great way to support all of us.

• 3:40:46Speaker 05

  Will you stop telling people about that?

• 3:40:48AJ Gentile?

  Those are the plugs. They get longer every week, but that's gonna do it. Until next time, be safe, be kind, and know that you are appreciated.

• 3:41:12Speaker 06

  I played for Libya in Area 51. A secret code inside the Bible said I was. I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music. So I'm singing like I should. But then another conspiracy theory becomes the truth, my friends. And it never ends, no it never ends.

• 3:41:49Speaker 06

  I fear the crap cat and got stuck inside Mel's home with them kale trucks. I'm being only too aware. Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing? On a film set, were the shadows people there? The Rockwell Indians just fought the smiling man, I'm told, and his name was Cold. And I can't believe, I'm dancing with the fish. Head to fish on Thursday nights with J.J. And one more zombie beat all through the night.

• 3:42:30Speaker 06

  All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. And one more zombie beat all through the night.

• 3:42:55Speaker 06

  The Mothman sightings and the solar storms still come. To have got the secret city underground. Mysterious number stations, planets circle to project Stargate. And what the Dark Watchers found. In a simulation, don't you worry though. The Black Knight said a lot, it told me so. I can't believe, I'm dancing with the fish. Head to fish on Thursday nights with J.J. And one more zombie beat all through the night.

• 3:43:36Speaker 06

  All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. And one more zombie beat all through the night. Head to fish on Thursday nights with J.J. And one more zombie beat all through the night. All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. And one more zombie beat all through the night.

• 3:45:13Speaker 01

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• 3:46:27Speaker 03

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