What We Know About UFOs (It’s Stranger Than You Think) | Jesse Michels
- Channel
- André Duqum
- Length
- 2 h 59 min
- Format
- Interview
- Speakers
- André Duqum, Jesse Michels
- Claims checked
- 0 of 103
Summary
André Duqum interviews Jesse Michels, a filmmaker who makes weekly videos on UFOs and non-human intelligence, in a three-hour conversation that moves from Cold War UFO history to consciousness and quantum physics. Michels's strongest argument is that UFO reports cluster around nuclear sites from the late 1940s on, in declassified Air Force, Army, CIA and FBI documents and in missile-crew testimony collected by Robert Hastings, and he ranks this pattern above the claims about crash-retrieval programmes. On top of that he builds a more speculative case: the beings may not be extraterrestrial but connected to humanity (a neotenous future human), the phenomenon resembles angels and visions in religious history (Diana Pasulka, Vallee), Thomas Townsend Brown's 1950s electrogravitics was real and then classified, and parapsychology and the quantum founders point to a role for mind. Nearly all of the evidence is relayed secondhand from interviewees, friends and books, and Michels himself flags some of it as unverified; his two personal sightings in 2020 were unrecorded. The video says little about death or the afterlife, touching only transmission theory of consciousness, DMT at death and Eleusinian 'temporary death'.
We publish a summary, chapters, the claims and short quotes. The transcript itself is never published.
Speakers
- André DuqumHostpodcast host (promo code 'know thyself')
- Jesse Michelsjournalist and researcher; producer of weekly UFO and non-human-intelligence videos; former startup investor
Claims
- Unverified
Michels concludes humans are probably not at the top of the food chain and something else is going on.
We're probably not at the top of the food chain and there's like something else going on
- Unverified
Michels argues that UFOs, exotic physics and consciousness together make a coming paradigm shift likely, because at least one of the three must be right.
if you uh can stay at the front of those three things one's got to be right
- Unverified
Michels says Jacques Vallee investigated a crash in 1945 at Trinity near San Antonio, New Mexico.
actually investigated in 1945 in Trinity uh in San Antonito
- Unverified
Michels says the July 1947 Roswell crash involved beings emerging from the craft and that this is now discussed at the highest levels of US intelligence.
A few beings seem to to to come out and this is now being talked about at the highest levels of intelligence
- Unverified
Michels says a former Director of National Intelligence appears in the documentary The Age of Disclosure and talks about Roswell.
former director of national intelligence which governs all of our you know intelligence agencies is in is in a movie that talks about Roswell
- Unverified
Michels says Gen. Nathan Twining's 1947 memo states UFOs are not visionary or fictitious and describes right-angle turns and speeds beyond human aircraft.
UFOs are not visionary or fictitious
- Unverified
Michels says the Twining memo's postscript says any US effort to build such craft would have to exist outside the civilian government bureaucracy.
it would have to exist pretty much uh outside of the
- Unverified
Michels says the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 makes anything radiological automatically classified and that this gave UFO retrieval programmes a legal cover of secrecy.
it is just classified if it's at all radiological
- Unverified
Michels says Lincoln LaPaz concluded that green fireballs appearing after atomic detonations appeared intelligently propelled.
you have these green fireballs popping up after atomic detonations
- Unverified
Michels says a huge wave of UFOs appeared over Washington DC on 19 and 27 July 1952 and caused mass hysteria.
a huge wave of UFOs uh uh over DC
- Unverified
Michels reports Curtis Peebles's claim that Truman phoned Ruppelt about the 1952 DC flap, and says he cannot verify that the call occurred.
I'd love some more verification on whether that phone call occurred
- Unverified
Michels says the CIA's Robertson Panel concluded that public knowledge of UFOs flying over defence assets would cause mass hysteria and that this drove an official policy of downplaying them.
highest levels of government that would touch off mass hysteria
- Unverified
Michels says Project Blue Book's mandate was to downplay and explain away UFO reports.
Let's rationalize. Let's explain away UFOs.
- Unverified
Michels says astronomer J. Allen Hynek later admitted he took part in the Blue Book cover-up and had not taken UFOs seriously enough.
admits that he's part of the cover up and that he didn't take UFOs as seriously as he should have
- Unverified
Michels says surviving letters show Air Force Col. Robert Hippler asked Edward Condon to conclude that Project Blue Book was a waste of time.
we now have letters between him and an Air Force Colonel, Robert Hipler
- Unverified
Michels says about 25 percent of the cases reviewed in the Blue Book/Condon era are still unresolved.
I think 25% are still unresolved
- Unverified
Michels says Edward Condon, who led the 1966-68 Colorado UFO study, was the author of the 1946 McMahon Atomic Energy Act and a close Oppenheimer insider.
he's responsible for writing the McMahon secrecy act in 1946
- Unverified
Michels says a 1974 documentary, UFOs: Past, Present and Future, showed the Air Force becoming more open and featured Hynek and Vallee.
in 1974 a documentary called UFOs uh past, present and future where the air force starts to change its tune
- Unverified
Michels says Bob Lazar's account of working at S4 on UFO reverse engineering is very hard to debunk and has been corroborated over time.
the best debunkers probably have trouble, you know, uh, denying that he worked at Area 51
- Unverified
Michels says the 2017 New York Times story revealed UFO study programmes running from 2007 to 2012, mainly at Skinwalker Ranch.
not necessarily reverse engineering programs but study groups going on um from 2007 to 2012
- Unverified
Michels says the Nimitz tic-tac object covered 0 to 30,000 feet in about 7/8 of a second.
I think it was like 7/8 of a second to go from uh 0 to 30 30,000 ft or something like that
- Unverified
Michels says Commander David Fravor later went to work at Lockheed.
I believe commander David Fraver even worked went on to work at Lockheed
- Unverified
Michels says The Three-Body Problem was read at the highest levels of US government in working groups under Stephen Hadley around 2006 or 2007.
it was read at the highest levels of government in these sort of official working groups
- Unverified
Michels speculates that a minimally interfering non-human observer would watch nuclear sites and particle accelerators.
It would be at nuclear sites. It would be at particle accelerators.
- Unverified
Michels reports that Robert Monroe thought some non-human beings were harvesting human negative emotion ('loosh'), and says he does not know whether that is real.
maybe mining us for luch and these were the bad alien beings
- Unverified
Michels says Hastings's database records missile-crew and security witnesses reporting UFOs and missiles dropping offline, and in a few cases launch sequences starting before being deactivated.
sometimes in one or two cases sequences being activated, but they always get deactivated
- Unverified
Michels relays Bob Jacobs's claim that film of a September 1964 Vandenberg missile test showed a saucer firing lasers at a dummy warhead.
they see uh a saucer wrapping around the the dummy nuclear payload and or the re-entry vehicle and lasers being shot at it
- Unverified
Michels reports that Bob Jacobs says he was threatened and his Air Force service records were deleted after he talked.
they say he never served in the Air Force
- Unverified
Michels says Maj. Florenz Mansmann publicly confirmed that Bob Jacobs worked for him and managed 130 people.
he managed 130 people
- Unverified
Michels relays Richard Barr's claim that a hooded being at Vandenberg in September 1964 told him telepathically that they were there to do reconnaissance on nuclear weapons.
basically telepathically telling him, uh, we are here to do recon on your
- Unverified
Michels says his own claim is only that the evidence is worth investigating, and he walks back most claims made in UFO circles.
my extraordinary claim is like there's something worthy of investigation here
- Unverified
Michels says UFO sightings cluster around civilian nuclear sites too, including a town in Japan, a 1995 case in Argentina and Chernobyl.
You have a famous 1995 case in Baroce Argentina where a lot of UFOs seem to show up and that's around their civilian energy grid
- Unverified
Michels argues that the repeated nuclear-site reports make the null hypothesis (nothing real is happening) less plausible than a real phenomenon.
the null hypothesis becomes crazier than just admitting that there's some sort of phenomena at play
- Unverified
Michels says there are good reasons to believe the beings are not aliens from other planets but are connected to humanity.
they're not aliens from other planets and they're actually more connected to mankind than we think
- Unverified
Michels speculates that non-human intelligences may be the next stage of human evolution, existing outside the flow of time.
is that the next evolution of mankind that is sort of atmporal that has sort of you know access to a time agnostic realm
- Unverified
Michels says John Mack was head of Harvard's psychiatry department and systematically studied alien abductions in the 1990s.
the head of Harvard the Harvard psychiatry uh department in the '90s started to systematically study alien abductions
- Unverified
Michels says abduction reports cannot be trusted at face value because the entity may control the experiencer's whole sensory apparatus.
whatever's going on has this like 360 demonic control
- Unverified
Michels says gray and Nordic-looking beings recur consistently in abduction reports.
These gray alien beings do seem to show up consistently
- Unverified
Michels says there is not enough evidence to claim the beings come from a specific star system.
I think you need a lot of evidence for that and I don't think we have it
- Unverified
Michels says some people report abductions involving reptilian beings.
there's some evidence out there that like people experience abductions with these sorts of beings
- Unverified
Michels says Travis Walton touched a craft in an Arizona forest in the 1970s and was blown back, and his crew reported him missing.
Travis then touches the craft and gets blown back
- Unverified
Michels says Walton's coworkers passed lie detector tests and local sheriff questioning.
They all take lie detector tests and are like grilled by the local sheriff
- Unverified
Michels says Walton returned after about five days with a full beard, as if more time had passed than he recalled.
he has like a full grown beard, so it's like as if like more missing time had occurred
- Unverified
Michels says Walton recalled being on a craft with an operating table, with both gray beings and Nordic beings.
he had been basically on this craft with an operating table with both grays and actually Nordics
- Unverified
Michels relays Mario Woods's claim that four small gray beings approached his vehicle at an Ellsworth AFB missile site in 1977, telepathically saying 'do not fear'.
He sees four beings which look like little gray aliens walking towards his car and they're saying over and over again telepathically do not fear
- Unverified
Michels says Woods blacked out and woke up 9 miles from the Ellsworth base.
He wakes up 9 miles away from the base
- Unverified
Michels infers from Woods's account of post-incident tests that the base was familiar with such events.
which imply that they have some sort of familiarity that this thing happens a lot
- Unverified
Michels says abduction memories recovered by hypnotic regression fit the pattern of repressed memories from traumatic events.
it pattern matches to any extremely traumatic experience
- Unverified
Michels says Grusch and similar whistleblowers describe the beings as almost like biological androids.
they actually say that a lot of these beings are almost like biological androids
- Unverified
Michels says Woods himself objects to anyone treating the hypnotic-regression content of his story as real.
gets mad actually if people say the hypnotic regression part was real because he wants to stick to the facts
- Unverified
Michels says about 170 nuclear-site witnesses exist and that the true number is probably in the thousands.
you literally have 170 of these guys
- Unverified
The host says Nolan found isotope ratios in recovered samples that match neither asteroids nor Earth.
magnesium and bismouth and other pieces that seem to have isotope ratios that don't match asteroids or anything on Earth
- Unverified
Michels says David Grusch was a 14-year intelligence officer, an Afghanistan combat veteran and a handler of the Presidential Daily Brief.
He's a 14-year intelligence officer. He was an Afghanistan combat veteran.
- Unverified
Michels says Grusch gave the intelligence community inspector general hundreds of pages about reverse-engineering programs.
he gave the uh intelligence community inspector general Thomas Mannheim uh hundreds of pages about these reverse engineering programs
- Unverified
Michels says that when asked in Congress for warehouse addresses, Grusch replied he would provide them in a secure facility (SCIF).
Do you have the addresses of these warehouses where these UFOs are being kept?
- Unverified
Michels ranks the evidence for a real aerial phenomenon above the evidence for literal reverse-engineering programs.
something phenomenologically in our airspace being real probably above the idea that we have literal reverse engineering programs
- Unverified
Michels says it is established that Bob Lazar worked at Los Alamos.
we know he worked at Los Alamos
- Unverified
Michels says unnamed people around the current US administration talk about UFOs casually, as if they knew they were real.
they talk about the UFO stuff casually like they kind of know that there's they're there
- Unverified
Michels says Area 51 was not publicly known before Bob Lazar and that Lazar knew details others did not.
Area 51 wasn't a thing before Bob Lazar, so he knew details around its existence
- Unverified
Michels says Garry Nolan found isotope ratios in the Ubatuba, Brazil fragments that do not exist naturally on Earth.
contain isotope ratios that don't naturally exist on Earth
- Unverified
Michels guesses that the Department of Energy and the national labs are the likeliest custodians of any exotic physics.
I think the department of energy if you look at our most frontier weapons testing it is the department of energy
- Unverified
Michels says that replacing angel with alien in historical religious accounts produces accounts that look like modern UFO stories.
if you one to one replace angel with alien or demon with alien
- Unverified
Michels says a CBS show depicted wrap-around-eyed aliens around the time of the Hills' abduction account, suggesting media influence on perception.
depicts aliens with eyes being wrapped around their head just like they are seeing
- Unverified
Michels says he would not call the phenomenon alien but an observable empirical anomaly.
I wouldn't call the current thing alien. I would just call the current thing an empirical
- Unverified
Michels says an observable UFO phenomenon could reunite science and religion.
remerge science and the spirit which bifurcated around the enlightenment
- Unverified
Michels says Vallee describes the UFO phenomenon as a control system using intermittent reinforcement.
that's how Jacqualite discusses the phenomenas
- Unverified
Michels speculates that, if we are in a simulation, a guardian class might manage what abductees perceive and recall.
there is a guardian class that is literally managing the abduction cases themselves
- Unverified
Michels says the Hill case of 1961 is when gray aliens entered popular culture.
that is really when grays were introduced into the zeitgeist, uh was was probably 1961
- Unverified
Michels says Aleister Crowley's drawing of 'Lam' resembles a gray alien.
he drew this figure he called Lamb, which looks kind of like a gray alien
- Unverified
Michels says the gray, Nordic and reptilian figures are Jungian archetypes that are reinforced by culture but probably also real.
I think they're archetypal in sort of a Yungian sense
- Unverified
The host raises the idea that aliens could be future humans.
Um, it also brings up notions of aliens being future humans potentially
- Unverified
Michels says the CIA approached Garry Nolan around 2015 about UFO experiencers with unusual physical effects.
the CIA came knocking at his door I think in like the mid2010s like 2015
- Unverified
Michels says Garry Nolan has looked at UFO experiencers who have what look like radiation burns.
he's looking at a lot of UFO experiencers and they're experiencing literal radiation burns
- Unverified
Michels says crates in Close Encounters bore the names Skunk Works and TRW.
crates and uh Close Encounters one that says I think skunk works and another that says TRW
- Unverified
Michels relays Chris Bledsoe's claim that a senior NASA scientist visited him as UFOs appeared at his North Carolina home.
we now know that guy to be this guy named Hal Pavin Meyer, who we know is this senior scientist at NASA
- Unverified
Michels says the odds that extraterrestrial life evolved to look like upright hominids are very low.
the likelihood of evolutionary convergence to this bipedal homminate upright you know creature which by the way is somewhat rare on earth uh is just extremely slim
- Unverified
Michels argues future humans will look like grays through neoteny, as dogs relate to wolves.
what a dog is to a wolf that is probably what a future human is to a current human just based on pure natural selection
- Unverified
Michels says testosterone and sperm counts are falling off a cliff.
testosterone's falling off a cliff
- Unverified
Michels says over half of abduction cases involve humanlike beings and most of those are friendly.
if you look at a lot of abduction cases over 50% of them involve hominid like beings
- Unverified
Michels says Occam's razor suggests the beings are related to humans.
the easiest shortest path explanation is definitely that they're related to you
- Unverified
Michels says Barney Hill recalled that semen samples were taken from him.
semen samples were taken from him
- Unverified
Michels says some abduction messages claim the beings had a nuclear holocaust and need to renew their biodiversity.
we experienced a nuclear holocaust and we need to renew our biodiversity
- Unverified
Michels says the craft seem more like time machines than vehicles for leaving Earth.
the crafts seem more like almost time machines than they do like vehicles that take you off Earth
- Unverified
Michels says a sitting president of a Russian republic told him he was taken aboard a UFO.
I did just interview the president of a Russian republic who was taken aboard a UFO while he was sitting president
- Unverified
Michels says Tesla, Townsend Brown and Marconi reported communicating with aliens.
Both of whom literally said they spoke to aliens. Maronei also said they spoke to aliens.
- Unverified
Michels says his godfather made the 1974 UFO documentary.
his godfather exactly literally made the seminal UFO documentary in 1974
- Unverified
Michels says a coincidence before his Laurel Canyon sighting felt symbolic.
there's something symbolic about him looking for a thing
- Unverified
Michels says he saw a silent, gray, school-bus-shaped object in Laurel Canyon in 2020.
I see a UFO that looks like this kind of like a school bus shaped thing
- Unverified
Michels says the object was about 50 to 60 feet up, silent and physical.
50ish 60ish feet like right above the treetops
- Unverified
Michels says he and a friend saw two metallic bobbing orbs during a breathwork session in Silver Lake.
we look up and we see these two metallic orbs
- Unverified
Michels says the orbs disappeared rather than flew off.
they seem to like disappear like it's like as if they, you know, they didn't like they didn't fly off
- Unverified
The host says there are too many orb photos for them all to be fakes.
We are swimming in orb photos and it far surpasses people's motivations to fake this stuff and CGI capabilities
- Unverified
Michels says Puthoff explains blurry UFO imagery by high-speed craft that compress or stretch light.
So you get these red shift or blue shift effects which are causing the sort of sunburn style stuff if you get into too close proximity to them
- Unverified
Michels names holograms, spoofing and secret propulsion as the strongest conventional explanation, then says it does not fit.
a combination of holographic holographic projections plus um you know and sort of spoofing technology
- Unverified
Michels says people in deep meditative states seem to see UFOs.
these people in these like deep meditative states seem to see see this stuff
- Unverified
Michels says Elon Musk told Tucker Carlson that pilots probably see classified US craft.
he went on I think Tucker Carlson and he walked back his dogmatic skepticism
- Unverified
Michels says UFOs are probably a zoo of different phenomena.
are we constantly are we conflating what is probably a zoo of phenomena? And that's probably the answer.
- Unverified
Michels says he has extremely high conviction something shows up over nuclear facilities worldwide.
extremely high conviction that something is showing up in the aerial space of nuclear facilities all over the world
- Unverified
Michels says the 1917 Fatima apparitions become more realistic in a mind-collapse world model.
the Fatima sighting of you know the Virgin Mary or whatever and you know 1917
- Unverified
Michels says Hal Puthoff started and ran the Stargate psychic spy programme.
he runs the psychic spy program in the US called Stargate out of Stanford and starts it
- Unverified
Michels says Puthoff told Rogan he discussed disclosure with Bush and Stephen Hadley.
he literally went on Joe Rogan's show and said like he contemplated disclosure with George W. Bush and his whole administration
- Unverified
Michels says Puthoff knows far more than he can say.
He's sitting on a lot more than he can uh than he can say
- Unverified
Michels says human consciousness is exceptional.
consciousness that is actually exceptional
Topics
- Paradigm shiftKuhn's account of anomalies accumulating until a paradigm breaks, applied by Michels to UFOs, exotic physics and consciousness.
- UFO-nuclear correlationThe claimed repeated pattern, from the late 1940s on, of UFO reports at nuclear weapons and energy sites worldwide.
- Project Blue BookThe USAF UFO investigation project, 1952-1969, which Michels says was charged with downplaying and explaining away reports.
- Robertson PanelThe 1953 CIA-convened scientific panel that Michels says concluded UFO publicity would cause mass hysteria.
- Minimal-interference hypothesisObservers who wanted minimal impact would monitor nuclear sites and accelerators.
- LooshMonroe's term for a harvested emotional energy; Michels reports it as one idea.
- Non-human intelligenceBeings or intelligences other than humans, which Michels says need not be extraterrestrial and which he describes as 'beings between man and God'.
- Atemporal beingA being outside the arrow of time, which Michels suggests the beings or the next human evolution might be.
- Interface theory of perceptionDonald Hoffman's idea that perception is an adaptive interface rather than a view of reality, used by Michels as shadow-play on Plato's cave.
- Alien abduction experienceReports of being taken by beings, often with missing time, examinations and messages; Michels says they cannot be taken at face value.
- Gray alienSmall gray humanoid with large eyes reported in abduction accounts, which Michels dates to the Hill case of 1961.
- Nordic alienTall, blond, humanlike beings reported in some contact and abduction cases.
- Reptilian beingReptile-like beings reported by some experiencers, for which Michels says there is 'some evidence' of reports.
- Telepathic communication with beingsMessages received without speech from beings, such as 'do not fear' (Woods) and the recon message (Barr).
- Hypnotic regressionUsing hypnosis to recover abduction memories, defended by Michels by analogy with repressed traumatic memories.
- Preference falsificationConcealing one's true account under secrecy pressure, used by Michels to extrapolate witness numbers.
- Reverse-engineering programClaimed secret programmes that recover and study non-human craft; Michels ranks the evidence for them below the evidence for a real phenomenon.
- Public/private physics forkThe claim that important physics went behind classification while public physics pursued string theory and quantum gravity.
- ElectrograviticsHigh-voltage electrostatic experiments, especially Thomas Townsend Brown's, claimed to produce propulsion or gravitational effects.
- Angel-alien equivalencePasulka's observation, relayed by Michels, that replacing 'angel' with 'alien' in visionary accounts yields modern UFO stories.
- Intermittent-reinforcement control systemVallee's view, as relayed, that the phenomenon works like a control system giving irregular rewards so people keep chasing it.
- SynchronicityMeaningful coincidence, which Michels says increases dopamine and steers lives.
- Reducing valveHuxley's analogy of the brain as a filter admitting only a trickle of a far larger reality.
- Eleusinian MysteriesAncient Greek initiation rites that Michels says induced temporary death and noetic knowledge.
- Disembodiment advantageThe claim that losing sensory input or the body can yield more knowledge, which Michels calls a Platonic model of epistemology.
- Stargate ProjectThe CIA-funded remote viewing programme begun by Hal Puthoff at SRI.
- Transmission theory of consciousnessThe view that the brain transmits or filters a non-local consciousness rather than producing it.
- Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR)Penrose and Hameroff's theory that microtubule quantum collapses underlie consciousness.
- Quantum biologyQuantum effects in living systems, used to defend quantum brain proposals.
- RetrocausalityA later event affecting an earlier one, which Michels links to premonitions and quantum computing.
- Future-human hypothesisThe idea that the beings are related to humans, perhaps humanity's neotenous descendants, because they look like us.
- Missing timeUnaccounted-for hours or days reported in abduction cases, which Michels reads as evidence of time-agnostic craft.
- Hybridization programSpeculation that abductions involve collecting gametes in an intergenerational breeding programme.
- Simulation hypothesisMichels prefers a Platonic reading: a lower interface reality that makes life sacred, not nihilistic.
- Merkabah mysticismJewish chariot mysticism and the seven heavenly palaces, treated as a normalisation of the ascent experience.
- Holotropic breathworkStanislav Grof's breathing method; Michels says it is supposed to release DMT.
- Deep black programClassified US aerospace development that might explain sightings.
- Sensor spoofingClassified technology that fakes radar and visual signatures, the strongest conventional explanation per Michels.
- Gravitational lensing of UAP imageryPuthoff's explanation, relayed, that high-speed craft distort light and so imagery is blurry.
- Phenomenon heterogeneityThe view that UFO reports are a zoo of different phenomena, not one cause.
- Consciousness causes collapseThe idea, held at times by von Neumann and Wigner, that the mind collapses the wave function.
- Micro-psychokinesisClaimed mental influence on random-event generators, studied at PEAR and elsewhere; Michels says it shows a weak but significant effect.
- ParapsychologyThe study of anomalous mental effects; Michels says its data will break current physics.