Neon Clips: Leslie Kean on the confluence of UFO encounters, consciousness, and death

Rice University's John Mack Institute is running a metadata study of thousands of pages of experiencer-report data drawn from the Whitley Strieber collection, the John Mack collection, and other sources.

They're doing a metadata study of all these endless, you know, thousands of pages of of data they have from Whitley Strieber's collection, from John Mack's collection, and elsewhere.

Karen Austin, who Kean says heads the Rice University metadata study, has discussed the project with Kean many times, and Kean intends to report on it when it is published.

I've talked to Karen Austin about this who heads that up, you know, many times... I have every intention of trying to report on it when it comes out.

The John Mack Institute archive holds accounts from thousands of people describing similar-but-distinct anomalous experiences, which Kean says makes the phenomenon hard to dismiss as a fringe concern.

thousands and thousands and thousands of people telling similar but different enough stories that you can't help but be... confronted with the idea that there is something very real and bizarre going on

Kean endorses Jim Semivan's argument that the UAP phenomenon itself, not government or human institutions, controls the pace of disclosure, and could disclose itself in seconds if it wished.

I'm a lot go along with the Jim Semivan arguments is that it's really the phenomenon that's in control. Uh if the phenomenon wants disclosure, it could happen in 2 seconds.

Kean argues gradual, incremental disclosure is preferable to an abrupt full release of information, because society could not immediately absorb or get answers to all the resulting questions.

the best chance I think the best chance we have is to sort of gradually unfold it the way we are... not to be able to answer all the questions that would come up as a result of doing that

Faulk characterizes Luis Elizondo's public framing of insider knowledge as a 'somber truth,' and says Elizondo compares learning it to receiving a cancer diagnosis.

it's like Lou Elizondo's somber truth. There's something that's, you know, he he equated it to a cancer diagnosis, so that's, you know, alarming

Kean says a number of unnamed insider sources convey an 'ominous' sense about what they know without sharing classified specifics, and that Elizondo's book carries the same tone.

I get that sense from a number of sources I have that it's kind of ominous, you know, and Lou even in his book writes about it in that way

Kean states the UAP phenomenon appears far more powerful than humanity and effectively 'in control,' with humans not at the top of the food chain.

the phenomenon is obviously completely uh more you know, so much more powerful than we are that basically it's in control... not being at the top of the food chain

Kean relays a theory she has heard, not her own, that continued environmental destruction and escalating geopolitical conflict could lead to dire events in coming years, and that if the phenomenon is 'really in charge,' its response to a human-caused planetary crisis is unknown; she explicitly labels this '100% speculation.'

since we are in the process of destroying our planet on an environmental level, plus geopolitically, things are escalating, and we're very warlike... there may be some kind of serious events that unfold in the next years that are very dire for the planet... this is 100% speculati

A claim, raised in the conversation, that communications attributed to non-human intelligence (NHI) during contact experiences frequently concern environmental themes.

the messaging coming from NHI over and over and over again, you know, and with experiences, it a lot of times it has to do with environmental issues

A theory, described as one Kean has heard rather than her own, that some entities behind UAP/contact phenomena may not be extraterrestrial but 'ultraterrestrial' - indigenous to Earth, possibly inhabiting the oceans.

there's the whole theory that perhaps many of the species don't aren't extraterrestrial, they're ultraterrestrial. They might inhabit our planet in some way under the ocean.

Kean began practicing Buddhism in college, at age 19, well before her reporting trips to Burma.

I actually began practicing Buddhism when I was in college... my practice of Buddhism, which began, you know, when I was 19

Kean reports witnessing, during her journalism trips to Burma, that Buddhist perspective was well integrated into the country's political system and culture.

going to Burma, which was absolutely a wonderful thing to for me to witness how the Buddhist perspective was actually integrated into the political system in Burma

Kean's book Surviving Death examined multiple independent research areas for evidence bearing on whether consciousness survives bodily death, and these lines of evidence 'all kind of pointed towards the same thing.'

for the book Surviving Death where I was looking at all this kind of studies and evidence for the possibility of consciousness surviving the death of the body, and it was from all these different research areas that all kind of pointed towards the same thing

Kean states that when she wrote Surviving Death, she had no sense that the UFO/UAP phenomenon was related to consciousness-survival research, and only began seeing the two as connected after the book was published.

when I wrote that book, I had no concept of the UFO phenomenon being in any way related to what I was writing about in Surviving Death... I find now to be kind of amusing

Faulk states consciousness 'plays a major role' in UFO encounters, is impacted by them, and sometimes probably helps create them, offered explicitly as his own 'gut sense' rather than a data-backed finding.

consciousness seems to play a major role in UFO encounters. It's impacted by them. It sometimes helps probably create them... I just have a gut sense.

Faulk speculates that UAP, consciousness, and related anomalous phenomena may all originate from or 'dwell' in a shared 'other dimension' or realm.

maybe there is some kind of realm, like you said... another dimension for lack of a better word, where all of these things kind of dwell

Kean asserts that recognition of a connection between UAP and consciousness is now widespread among observers of the field.

I think everybody kind of sees that now.