Stanton Friedman on Jacques Vallee and UFOs/Consciousness; An Interview by Alex Tsakiris

Now, when we talk about augmented reality, there are three important use cases that we think about…
—Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook

That’s Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, spreading Facebook’s Brave-New-World-Gospel re the merging of consciousness and computing. He’s actually taking his foot off the pedal a little bit with this group of developers. If you search for some of his more freewheeling discussions he straight-up talks about mind reading, telepathy and even mind control. It’s all part of Facebook’s glorious future. And, you know what? He might be right.

Skeptiko has always been about controversial science and spirituality related to consciousness, but if we’re going to be honest, we have to accept that technology has a role to play in cutting through some of the philosophical bullshit that sometimes dominates these discussions. I mean, when mind reading is another app you can download on your iPhone 20, some of the “spiritual” questions surrounding consciousness will be answered.

Same goes for UFOs. The main question that’s dominated the UFO field for the last 10 years is whether we should remain focused on nuts-and-bolts technology related questions/issues, or shift the focus to experiences and experiencers. Jacques Vallee has been a leading thinker in this area linking modern UFO encounters extended consciousness phenomena. I’ve covered this topic in my recent interview with him and my interview with Robbie Graham. But since we had not heard from anyone in the nuts-and-bolts camp, I decided to turn to Stanton Friedman for this episode.

Listen here.

Stan and I talk about a number of things. One of the things we talk about is this technology angle as it relates to the “consciousness stuff” that shows up in the UFO phenomenon:

Alex Tsakiris: One thing I want to throw out there and get your opinion on, because again, I come at this whole thing from a totally different perspective, my main interest is consciousness science. We study near-death experience, psi phenomenon. Last time I had you on I thought you did a marvelous job of connecting us to the Betty and Barney Hill case and how that leads right into some of this extended consciousness stuff, that again, no one ever gives you credit for, they always say, “Stan’s the nuts and bolts, saucer guy and that’s all he knows,” and that hasn’t been my experience. Let’s leave that aside for a minute and I’ll tell you, when I hear somebody talk about UFOs and they lead with, and lean too heavily on the technology component, I’m always a little bit leery. I mean, we’re talking about information that would completely change our understanding of who we are, where we came from, why we’re here and then you’re going to lead with, “Oh, and it’s going to be free energy for your car.” I mean, it may be free energy, but the social implications are so much bigger, I do always feel like I’m being distracted, and I don’t know how you feel about that.

Stan Friedman: Yes, I agree with you. I agree with you, there are a lot of distractions out there. I keep telling people, when I have a chance, that I’m convinced that the aliens know a heck of a lot more about the crazy stuff, if you will, near-death experiences and mental telepathy, you know, stuff like that, that the rest of the scientific community doesn’t want to deal with in general. There are a few guys that have got guts, but not many. I’m convinced that there’s a lot we don’t know and part of it is because it’s our unwillingness to admit that we don’t know. We’re smart guys, you know, we know what’s going on, don’t we? Frequently the answer is no.

I don’t think we spend enough time looking at the non-conventional aspect of UFO technology, if you will. Look, how does a guy go through a wall, go through a window without breaking the glass? I don’t know how to do those things and that’s weird and it’s important. It tells us that there’s a lot going on that we don’t know about, but in a sense, considering the primitive society we have on this planet. I mean, let’s not forget, we killed 15 million people during World War II. We destroyed 1700 cities. Could anybody say we’re nice guys? I mean, who would want us out there?

So, I’m convinced that evil use could be made of a lot of this, not just the technology, [unclear 00:05:38] right-angled turns and all that sort of stuff, but of these other things, mental control of others, that scares me. Who’s going to rule the roost here, if we give them half a chance.

Stick around, my interview with UFO researcher, Stan Friedman, is up next on Skeptiko.

Read Excerpts:

Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome famous UFO researcher, author and nuclear physicist, Stan Friedman back to Skeptiko. Stan is one of the absolute giants in the field of UFO research. I’m sure many of you know that already, but just in case you didn’t, I mean, we’re talking hundreds and hundreds of TV appearances, radio appearances, thousands of lectures around the world and of course, several books and many important articles. He has such a vast broad knowledge of a lot of different aspects of UFO research, even some of the ones that we’re most interested here on Skeptiko, in terms of the overlay with consciousness science and some frontier science. So, I’m really looking forward to this conversation. Stan, welcome back, great to have you here.

Stan Friedman: Great to be on again. I love doing radio, I don’t need to wear a tie.

Alex Tsakiris: All this gets back to a topic we were talking about just a few minutes ago and that has to do with disclosure. In a way it traces back to that, and I think you have an interesting perspective on this that I haven’t heard expressed a lot of times and I’d like to talk to you about it, because you lived through several of these waves of disclosure.

You mentioned the Majestic-12, the MJ-12 documents. We all thought that was going to be one of the biggest cases or the most clear-cut cases of disclosure, it’s all out there, now we know, blow the lid off it, change the world kind of disclosure. Whether you say it was a misinformation plot and a disinformation plot, whether it was, I think, as you said a few minutes ago, someone deciding, “Hey, we need to refocus this, redirect this,” it certainly turned out that way. I wonder what perspective that gives you on this new round of disclosure that we seem to be heading into, where, “It’s coming guys, it’s right around the corner, here it comes, get ready for it. You’re going to learn all the secrets,” kind of thing. Haven’t you seen this story before?

Stan Friedman: One of the things that’s intriguing about MJ-12 is how many phony documents were put out after the stuff had been found.

Alex Tsakiris: Awesome, true, completely.

Stan Friedman: That leaves many people able to say, “We’ll say these documents are phony, so they ignore them.” I’m saying there are three that are genuine. They’re the ones that matter, I don’t care about the phony ones. It’s standard practice to put out this information.

Alex Tsakiris: Standard practice by who, for what reason and why? Forget MJ-12, set it aside for a minute. All the confusion, how about that part? Standard practice for who, for what reason and what does that say about how we should feel about the current round of disclosure?

Stan Friedman: I see no reason to say that there really is a current round of disclosure, it’s just a bunch of guys claiming that it’s going to happen. I think that we need to recognize that there are good reasons for keeping secrets and you don’t want your enemies to know what you know, either about what you know or about what you know, they know. The weapon, the counter weapon, the counter counter weapon, these have been games we’ve been playing for a long time.

So, I think that it would be standard practice, if something slips out to do whatever you can to cover it up. You can’t just stand up and say that, you put out crap, if you will. That’s what MJ-12 is, that’s why I use that. I have a book out, Top Secret/Majic, which goes into a number of the documents and why I say they’re phony. It’s clear they’re phony if you look carefully.

It’s kind of funny, the debunkers glom onto disclosure in their own way. Philip Klass challenged me on one of the MJ-12 documents, the Cutler-Twining memo to be precise. Obviously it’s a funny document because it’s done in the large pica type and the National Security Council used only small elite type and I’ve got nine documents to prove it. He offered me $100 each, for every genuine document meeting a whole bunch of rules, if you will. “You have 60 days,” but he set a limit only on 10, unfortunately, or I’d be a wealthy man.

Anyway, I went to my files and I spent a lot of time at the Eisenhower Library, the Truman Library and the Kennedy Library, etc. I immediately found 20 documents that were done in the large pica type, it’s easy to see actually, when you look at them alongside other ones. So, I knew that was a bunch of baloney but I was going to the Eisenhower Library anyway, so I went and I found 14 that met every single condition he put on them. I sent him copies and an invoice for $1,000, because he set a limit of 10. He paid me and he got madder than heck when I published a copy of his check. I finally told him, I said, “Look, Phil. You sent me a check, I Xeroxed the check. I took the check to the bank, the bank cashed it. I can do whatever I damn please with the Xerox.” So he shut up.

It turns out, and I didn’t know it until then, that’s what ought to check, it turns out he’d never been to the Eisenhower Library. I spent weeks there. But that’s typical of the intellectual bankruptcy of the pseudoscience of anti-ufology, and the question is, who’s he working for? He claims he didn’t work for any three-letter agency. Or how about a four-letter one?

Alex Tsakiris: Like what? What four-letter one?

Stan Friedman: I can’t even think of one. Psychological Strategy Board? No, that’s three. I had a list one time, there were several of them. The point is that Phil made claims without anything to back them up and thought he would get away with it. Well, he didn’t, but it is typical.

Alex Tsakiris: Let’s fast forward a little bit and take that perspective, bring that perspective with you and let’s talk about some of the figures that are on the scene now, because this is really going to be fascinating.

Again, you’ve lived through this history, you were right in the middle of it. You weren’t like reporting on it, you were in it. What do you make of Steven Greer? He’s got a new movie, Unacknowledged. What did you think of the movie and were you surprised to see Richard Doty show up? Again, a confirmed disinformation agent. He shows up in the film. There’s no explanation that he has that background, there’s no consideration of it, he’s just, “Hey, here’s an insider in the government.” So, all three of those, what do you make of Greer? What do you make of the movie? What do you make of a disinformation agent?

Stan Friedman: I saw the movie at a conference and I was not favorably impressed. My feeling has always been, I’ve heard Steve speak many times, that he really doesn’t understand security. I’m bothered by things like, he was offering people the opportunity, they could spend the weekend at his farm in Virginia. It cost $600 or so, all expenses covered, but they would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. He would tell them everything he knew. This is the guy who’s in charge of the disclosure movement. I mean, that’s pretty damn silly.

Steve is a charismatic speaker, he gets around a lot, does a lot of talks and makes a lot of money, I guess, but I don’t consider him… He doesn’t do the kind of research we’re talking about. He doesn’t go to the archives to check on documents, to dig out the goodies, if you will, painstaking though it may be and frustrating though it may be. But when you find something, wow, you know?

Alex Tsakiris: He did have some documents he disclosed from his meeting with the CIA director, that I thought were significant, no matter how you spin that.

Stan Friedman: Remember, they had lunch together. He made it sound like he was briefing him.

Alex Tsakiris: I don’t know if those guys… I mean, his claim and I think he has some merit again. I don’t know what to make of him, I just want to hear your opinion of it. But to sit down with somebody for two hours and take a presentation for two hours and say that was lunch, when he’s talking about, “Here’s everything I know.”

Stan Friedman:I didn’t hear that it was two hours, I heard that it was much shorter than that. I don’t know and I don’t have any good way to find out. I mean, you could ask Steve but why would you believe him if you think he may be inclined to exaggerate, misrepresent, overstate. Those are words I would use with regard to him.

People that have never had a clearance don’t seem to understand that there are different ways of thinking, once you get a clearance.

I’ll tell you, I developed a healthy respect for security when I went to GE. If you left a document, and this is a closed facility mind you, guards at the door, you needed a clearance, that fancy badge that you were talking about, the guards would go through the facility at night, if they found a classified document, you’d get a call at ten o’clock at night. “Mr. Jones, we found a classified document on your desk. Please come in and inventory all your documents.” It’s not a fun procedure and if it happens twice, you’re in real trouble, and three times, you’re probably out. So, you develop a very healthy respect.

One time, I always remember this, I was going to give a classified talk at a conference on radiation shielding and for some reason my slides didn’t get finished. I had prepared all the material but they weren’t finished by the time the regular courier was supposed to go. “So Stan, you have a need to know for this material, obviously you developed it, so we can make you a courier.” They sent me down all the rules, you know, “The slides don’t go in the trunk of your car in your briefcase, they go with you in the car with your briefcase,” and a whole bunch of other things. I’ll tell you, I was never so glad to get rid of stuff when I got to the other end. I mean, really aggravating, because they’re scaring you. The whole tone was, “We don’t give a damn about you, we care about your classified material.”

So, you have to recognize that, “Okay, they don’t care about me. I’ve got to be careful what I’m doing, because they’re going to come after me and all hell will break loose if they discover I’ve done something that doesn’t follow the rules.” So it upped my understanding of the terror that’s used to keep people in line, if I can put it that way.

You mentioned somebody else, Steve and?

Alex Tsakiris: The other person I thought we should, kind of bring to the fore and see what you think, is Tom Delonge, getting a ton of press lately.

Stan Friedman: Yes.

Alex Tsakiris: Very strange in my opinion, in terms of how that’s been rolled out. Of course, he’s the former front man for Blink-182, has expressed an interested in UFOs for the last ten years, has had all these associations, was closely associated with John Podesta, who has some very deep, troubling connections to some other, kind of nasty stuff. But now, here we are, in mid to late 2017, and Delonge has this big, big announcement that’s coming out, supposedly, in this technology center, which always throws me for a loop. But jump in there, what do you think about Tom Delonge?

Stan Friedman: Well, I read most of his book. He’s got a big fat book out there. I won’t say he’s not sincere and I won’t say he hasn’t met with a bunch of these people who are in the need to know world. I have no independent means of checking him out, whether he’s feeding us garbage that somebody fed him to confuse the world, so that The New York Times can dismiss it, if you will, that kind of thing. I don’t know.

That was a surprise hearing about Tom and seeing how thick his book is and how many people are jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak. Not the first guy you’d think of as being concerned with UFOs . Again, he didn’t have a security clearance, as far as I know, I have no indication that he did. I wonder if he really understands how security works.

In other words, there’s disinformation off to the side to create confusion, so people stay away from the good stuff. That’s a sensible procedure, you know? Why not disinform?

Alex Tsakiris: One thing I want to throw out there and get your opinion on, because again, I come at this whole thing from a totally different perspective, my main interest is consciousness science. We study near-death experience, psi phenomenon. Last time I had you on I thought you did a marvelous job of connecting us to the Betty and Barney Hill case and how that leads right into some of this extended consciousness stuff, that again, no one ever gives you credit for, they always say, “Stan’s the nuts and bolts, saucer guy and that’s all he knows,” and that hasn’t been my experience. Let’s leave that aside for a minute and I’ll tell you, when I hear somebody talk about UFOs and they lead with, and lean too heavily on the technology component, I’m always a little bit leery. I mean, we’re talking about information that would completely change our understanding of who we are, where we came from, why we’re here and then you’re going to lead with, “Oh, and it’s going to be free energy for your car.” I mean, it may be free energy, but the social implications are so much bigger, I do always feel like I’m being distracted, and I don’t know how you feel about that.

Stan Friedman: Yes, I agree with you. I agree with you, there are a lot of distractions out there. I keep telling people, when I have a chance, that I’m convinced that the aliens know a heck of a lot more about the crazy stuff, if you will, near-death experiences and mental telepathy, you know, stuff like that, that the rest of the scientific community doesn’t want to deal with in general. There are a few guys that have got guts, but not many. I’m convinced that there’s a lot we don’t know and part of it is because it’s our unwillingness to admit that we don’t know. We’re smart guys, you know, we know what’s going on, don’t we? Frequently the answer is no.

I don’t think we spend enough time looking at the non-conventional aspect of UFO technology, if you will. Look, how does a guy go through a wall, go through a window without breaking the glass? I don’t know how to do those things and that’s weird and it’s important. It tells us that there’s a lot going on that we don’t know about, but in a sense, considering the primitive society we have on this planet. I mean, let’s not forget, we killed 15 million people during World War II. We destroyed 1700 cities. Could anybody say we’re nice guys? I mean, who would want us out there?

So, I’m convinced that evil use could be made of a lot of this, not just the technology, [unclear 00:23:44] right-angled turns and all that sort of stuff, but of these other things, mental control of others, that scares me. Who’s going to rule the roost here, if we give them half a chance.

Alex Tsakiris: Stan, in general, how do you feel about this characterization that I hear over and over again? I said to you in the email that just recently I had the chance to interview Robbie Graham about his new book, UFOs: Reframing the Debate. A book that again, says we should be looking at this consciousness model of UFOs. I interviewed Jacques Vallée, and we’re definitely going to talk more about that if I can squeeze a few minutes. But, when I go through all of those, I continue to get the characterization of Stan Friedman as, he’s a guy who’s just interested in nuts and bolts and the UFO field has moved on and is interested in experiences and experiencers. One, how do you feel about both, how you’re being characterized there and how the field is being characterized and whether the field has and should move from worrying about nuts and bolts, sightings and that kind of stuff, to being interested in experiences and experiencers?

Stan Friedman: Look, I’m coauthor of the book Captured, the Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. I’m certainly convinced, not only that the event took place as described in the book, but that there’s a lot going on there that isn’t really conventional. So, yeah, I guess people call me the nuts and bolts guy. Some people might just say plain nuts, but I’m convinced there is another aspect to the phenomenon that’s very important. Call it, not just telepathy, but being able to control other people, being able to exert control over parts of the physical world that we don’t really know how to deal with.

Like I say, I’ve listened to tapes of people reliving the experience of watching aliens go through the walls and it’s scary. I mean, that’s incredible. So, I’m interested in that stuff but I don’t know what to do about that stuff. I’m a nuclear physicist, okay, I know what to do about that, but all this mental stuff, I find fascinating. Again, I’m in physics, not psychology.

Alex Tsakiris: What do you think of Jacques Vallée? I enjoyed the opportunity to interview him just recently. He’s kind of made the rounds again. I think he has some really interesting things to say. I’d love to juxtapose those with some of your thoughts and comments. But first, what do you think of him in general?

Stan Friedman: I like him. I’ve been to his place in San Francisco. I see him at conferences from time to time and we seem to get along very well. I won’t characterize how he thinks of me, because I don’t know, but we seem to have hit it off pretty well.

I think he’s a very bright guy. He suffers from association with astronomers, what can I say! Astronomers don’t know anything about deep space travel, they don’t know anything about security in general and stuff like that. So, they’re cut off from an important part of the UFO world, but I think Jacques has done a great deal. He’s written several interesting books and he’s quite good at getting people interested in what’s going on, but coming at it from an entirely different side of the world than I am, in most senses. Yeah, I’m nuts and bolts, okay.

I think he’s one of our leading lights. I mean, he’s getting old, so am I and he’s been around a long time and I give him credit for sticking to it.

Alex Tsakiris: I give you credit for sticking to it and I think you don’t get enough credit. I mean, look at this, we’ve been going at it for an hour. You are on as top of your game as you were the last time I talked to you, five years ago and I can go and listen to an interview with you 15 years ago, you’re moving forward, you’re on top of the issues. I think that’s fantastic, I think you’re a fantastic resource for this community and a giant in this community.

Stan Friedman: Thank you.

Alex Tsakiris: Your shoulders we all stand on. Let me just throw that in there, unsolicited.

Stan Friedman: Well, it sounds very good and my ego is happily pleased by such things.

Alex Tsakiris: It’s the truth. It’s the truth. Let me tie that to Vallée, because I found and to my surprise, and I think a lot of people were looking for something else, I found a lot of similarities in where Jacques Vallée is today with some of the things that you’re expressing. One, Vallée understands the idea of secrecy, understands the idea that maybe, as troublesome as misinformation and deception is, that it’s part of the package and conspiracy comes with the territory. He also was a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. You can’t be a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and not be knee-deep in conspiracy every day, that’s your lifeblood, you know? You do not tell people stuff.

Stan Friedman: Yes, I’ll agree with that.

Alex Tsakiris: But also, you ask Vallée and again, people ask him about MUFON, and again he’s misunderstood as somebody who says, “Oh, we should move past sightings,” and all the rest of it. He says the opposite, he says, “Oh no, that’s important work, we should continue all that work.” So, I see him as somebody who has one foot firmly planted in the nuts and bolts, if you will, because that’s the data that we can, at least, kind of get our arms around a little bit, and another foot in this big question mark area, the mental phenomenon part that you’re kind of talking about. I see him having a similar kind of balanced approach, only with an emphasis on, maybe some areas that he’s more comfortable with, in terms of exploring on the mental and psychological side, because he’s chosen to focus on that.

Stan Friedman: I agree with you and I think he’s one of the leaders of the field. He doesn’t make a lot of noise anymore these days, but he shows up at conferences. I respect his opinions. I don’t say that about everybody to tell you the truth. So, Jacques is a good person, as far as I’m concerned.

Alex Tsakiris
Skeptiko