Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth With Annie Jacobsen 20170408

Host Annie Jacobsen, its start with definitions. Whats area 51 . Guest thats a secret basese out in nevada where all kinds of mysterious things happen that you and i can talk about and maybe we know what is going on out there maybe we dont. Host whew its called area 51. Guest big debate. I believe its called area 51 because of the original project that went on us there in 1951. Information given to me by some of the sources that i interviewed at length for that book, but of course, everything about area 51 is kind of a mussel inside of a palestine sol thats debated. The actual origins, the original date, the origin story of area 51. Host in 1951 what was going on . The Atomic Energy commission was doing loots of Nuclear Testing out there in the middle of the desert, and they wanted to keep what they were doing secret, and the cia was kind of coming into existence with its programs, and the two merged in this idea of if you have a secret base in a secret place you can do secret programs. Host not a military operation . Necessarily . Guest well, area 51 has every organization you can imagine there over the decades. Military, Intelligence Community, Atomic Energy commission. So, everybody has their foot in area 51. Host what is operation paper clip . What was person paperclip . Guest i guess the idea of my books can from the books if hey written before, and when i was finishing up area 51, i learned quite a bit about some nazi scientist were here working on programs and i found this fascinating in particular ay imt fellow named sigfried neimeier, fare important air force Technical Intelligence person, and when he retired in the 70s he was given the Defense Departments distinguisheded civilian service award. So thats kind of this incredibly high honor to get from the pentagon. And when i looked into his pastt i learned that he had been during the war, world were 2, he head been one of the most important Technical Intelligence officers for gehring of the the houston i thought how do you work wore one skies then the other side and thats why i wrote operation paper klein. That was the springboard of the journey. Host what was operation paper clip . To bring nazi scientists to u. S. Correct. Guest yes, after the war we brought as plane as 1600 nazi scientist create our weaponsur o program. This brings up a lot of moral questions and what i found most intriguing about writing theng book, of all my books, trying to maintain this neutral position and looking at both sides 0 the argument because many people will tell you paper clip was imperative. We had to bring the nazi scientists to the United States in order to beat back the russians. Others would kell you how could be bring this nazis sneer someis were war criminals. Theres dod weapons policy forr you in nutshell, i. E. , extremely complicated and always two sides of the argument. Host what is the pentagonss brain . Guest pentagons brain, buck number three for me. That idea came from paper clip when i editor dish was finishing up with pain clear and werner von braun a famous scientist, create of Rocket Program and responsible for the pay poll low program. Si host he was a nazi scientist guest hitlers robert rocket builder and my editor at little brown asked me, what win on with van braun in such a such a year and i looked into and it found out that this was in 1957. That this new agency was emerging the pentagon and waitit called arpa, advanced Research Project agency. We know is at darpa with a d for defense. When they were beginning this organization, the query was who is this best scientist in america to lead the program . To lead all of American Military technology in what is calledmi blue sky research, and the chose von braun, and the was interviewed for the job but his caveat, to take the job was, i need to bring 12 of my colleagues from the rocketee program and they were all former nazis. So that was the dividing line for the pentagon. They said no. And they passed on von braun being darpas first director, and but the way that it came about of call it the pentagons brain was realizing that the Defense Department is looking at the great minds. Thats what theyre concerned with. They want to know who will lead us in technology of the future . Host what are the thing that have come out of darpa. Guest i mean, you name it. The most famous is, of course, the internet, which wasur originally called the a. Pa net arpa net but techer tollings like gps, Laser Weapons no end to what the pentagon produces. Theres reason to say thates rs Artificial Intelligence is a darpa product. Biotechnology. So, theres the idea that the pentagon this is important to think about. Darpa is the most powerful and most productive military Science Agency in the world, and so few people know about it. Thats pretty much wife i wrote the book in a nutshell. It was like, how can this agency be so significant, kind of changing and shaping our world, if you will, and yet its Public Perception its close to zero. Host psychokinesis. Guest book number four nor me that i have just publishedded last week, is the idea of the book is called phenomena, about the governments investigations into extra sensory perception, and psycho kinesis. Extra sensory perception, gaining knowledge through means other than the five known senses, psycho kinesis, the ability to move objectses with the mind. These are subjects that manysu scientist is will tell you pseudo science. I came off this hard book, the pentagons brain, and on the other side of the spectrum, called squishy science but the pentagon exDefense Departments, hentagon, are interested in these subjects. Host taxpayer dollars spent studying psychokinesis and espn. Guest yes. This goes back by the way look, all roads lead back to the nazis. Find certainly when im investigating and reporting on Defense Department Weapons Programs and Intelligence Community intelligence collection programs and esp, the phenomena leads back to nazis. Were talk can decades of research in the area, still going on today, but the original programs came from the idea that after the war we head a intelligence collection unit called operation al foss. That began in the end when the war was going on. And we sent our sort of finest scientists to try and capture Nazi Technology and we did, and this is the link between all of my books. So, one of the cache of documents we found, this links up to the book phenomena was part of me lers organization and in that organization he was investigating extra sensory perception, psychokinesis, and when we got these documents they became very interesting to a lot of individuals in the military Intelligence Community. Bout guess who get half of the documents . The russians. So anything we knew they had, we were worried about who would win the race and that is how the psychic arms race began. Same way the over in the hard Science Department you had the rocket arms race, that idea of getting man into space began with captured nazi documents, v2s and scientists, literally von braun. It host was your career arc to be an historian, talking about National Security affair snooze not at all. Fate and circumstances intervene, its an interesting concept for me to write about, about how how circumstance has a role in the path that one is on. I wanted to be a novelist when i was younger. And i went away to boarding school with a typewriter when i was 15, and i was going to be the Great American novelist, and decade passed and nat was not the case, and i one of my mentors said to me, stop making things up. Pursue the truth. Its the truth that matters. She also pointed out i had a little difficulty following direction, and that if i work with an editor, at a newspaper, or a magazine, i would learn how to follow direction and that was exactly what i did. It was extraordinarily help for me and i tell anyone interested to do that. If youre willing to take criticism about your work and work with very smart individuals who can help you streamline your ideas and pull out what is really important and send you on other paths and suggest you interview different people, that becomes, i think, an enormously powerful journey, when you bring other great minds into the mix to kind of direct you, and then you kind of wind up where youre headed. Thats my experience. Host how did you get started on area 51. Guest that was fate and circumstance intervening. I also think luck comes into play. What was interesting writing the book on extra sensory perceptios and psycho kin sunny sis is a lot of psychokinesis is that scientists who lean first the super natural talk about including coincidence and say these are these these fall into the category ofel extrasensory perception. A very squishy science concept but i like thinking bit because of this question that youut brought up. So, how does one get a lucky break . You could say, fortune favors the prepared mind. He if youre always reading and writing and thinking and working on subjects that are of interest to you, then circumstance intervenes and you are on your way, but specifically with area 51 i was at a dinner party with seated next to a gentleman named ed lovic who is a distant nationally member. Always under the impression he was an aircraft designer because i new he worked for lockheed, and he leaned over to me one day in must have been 2007 or 2008 and he said, boy, have ii got an interesting story for you. At the time i was reporting on terrorism. He said he read was reading what i jet enjoyed reading it. So what was his interesting story . And he said the cia just declassified my lifes work. I invented Stealth Technology i was a physicist that led the team and this goes back to when eisenhower was president and this is a remarkable lead for a reporter to get. I went to the cia and of course lo and beholds they just declassified this Aircraft Program called ox cart. That took place at area 51. At so then i began to work with lovic, talking to him about this role in the science and tech knowingly role building this incredible aircraft and i learned, ahha, theres a back story to the back story and a lot of tangents that are super interesting and all going fall on the axis of area 51 and thats how i got the idea of the book. Host when did the larger bill clinton aware of area 51 . Guest well, thats pa great question. Its very interesting in terms of u. S. National security but a be when you become at that time what a powerful potent idea area 51, the fact it remains almost unknown to the general population, until the early 1990s, is astonishing. Talk about being able to keep a secret. I mean, make the analogy in theb book about the Manhattan Project, same idea. Even Vice President harry truman did not know about host or congress. Guest or congress. The one funding the program did not know about the program. E so, i think secretkeeping is very interesting. I write about it in all of my books. But to your question, it wasnt untillen individual named roberd lazarr squeaked this built of news out whichland on the edge of conspiracy, and then area 51 became known and that is the origin of an extraordinary amount of Conspiracy Theory that grew out of that base and still exists about that base. And there are still things going on there now. Host who is robert lazar. Guest an interesting, lets say, engineer and was out the base and su things host he was working there. Guest yes. S. People will tell you he never worked there again, you know,te the myth inside the puzzle inside the conundrum but he stood by his position he saw an alien, and then you get into to as i was reporting the story, all these realms of black propaganda and did they dress someone up and make them look like an alien . This idea of mythology and misinformation and disinformation is part andnf parcel to area 51. Real to all of the book i have written. The subject jazz you talk about you have to sign an oath if you are working at area 51. By the way is it called area 51 by people who work there or guest yes and no. When i was interview thingngthec scientists who pocked that and the spies and by lots they called ill loon lake, or thend ranch, and of course, what is fascinating or was to me was that the actual word area 51 was classified when i was writing the book. Its since been declassified because president obama referred to it publicly. N that is a quick way to declassify something. But when i was looking at those documents we were talking about easterly yes, the ox cart documents wow would be read andi then be a small word redacted, like blacked over and if you look at into the light thats area 51 and out of Something Like 7,000 pages pages of docums that i reviewed, i found two places where someone forgot to block out area 51. So you would see it there and it was an ahha moment. Host lazar. La las vegas television, what happened . Guest well, he went on tvap and made this claim that host local channel in las vegas. Guest yes, yes, and saidid there were there was Alien Technology and there was an alien out there, and people have been fascinated with ufos and for millennium. Thats so so this was like setting off a match in dry grass. S the people went the story built and it became kind of a firestorm and i think that that has since become a great point of contention and why area 51 is on such a lockdown issue because people will not move off the idea that there are aliens out there many people believe that and still do. Host what kind of cooperation did you get from various government agencies, or trade to work with. Guest everybody book is different. Every book is different. Theres a dance, i think, done with journalists because remember that just basic job of the journalist is to inform the public. In spirit youre really not even supposed to have an opinion so one would think you would want to work with transparent elements of the government to also make things known, but i find in my experience that current, lets say, like, the p. R. Office of the agencies, they only want to present a certain message, and that is not thats a message, not a fact, lets say. So where i do most of my reporting is in interviewing scientists who are retired who worked on very significant programs for these individual agencies, and are acutely aware of what they can speak of and what they cannot because its still classified. And because i also write about a lot of cold war programs, things that were incredibly interesting and involved extraordinary classification measures decade ago, everyone wanted to know about them then then but could not. When they become declassified the pock has moved on and i the public has moved on and i find that by tracking down thet scientists, the super men of science, theyre happy to share their stories because people have lost interest. Its an idea that its important to know the past to safeguard the future and thats the greatest joy with working with defense scientists, who are dedicated patriots, who believe in what they did, but are also especially asia getid older willing to share the pitfalls, the failures, and the press office of any given military or Intelligence Agency does not want to talk about failure, period. They only want to talk about success. , and i think theres a danger in that. Thats a theme in all of my books. Not to ridicule a failure, but, rather, to demonstrate that failure is part of success, but we must be very careful and about trying to cover up failure. Host how much of what goes on or did go on at area 51 is still classified and. Guest i mean, if i host or dont you know . Guest this is the analogy. Its sometimes said i wrote the book on area 51, but if you imagine an iceberg and you think of how much of the iceberg youer see and then however is below the surface, i probably if you planted a flag the top of the iceberg thats probably what i reported, in a 450 page book. What has been what has gone on there and what can continues to go on there boggles the mind. We could talk about Tunnel Technology for three more hours. When you think you have whats going on at area 51, a lot of tunnel systems city base,ing this goes on there. These are the great mysteries if cant wait to write area 52. Host have you become a freedom of information request expert . Guest most definitely. My kids i filed so many foia requests that sometimes the often come in the mail and their i theyre usually anally eight eightbyten1 2s and say nsa or dod or cia, and theyre the thin envelopes because that means you open up one sheet of paper and it says, request nonresponsive, meaning, sorry, we cant find any information. Every now and then you get a bigger envelope and that sort of a great moment of joy. That happen with phenomenak acame i came home country and was thick pact from the central Intelligence Agency and there are were almost a thousand pages of documents on the esp and psychokinesis programs that wer bays of pomona. I learn that the apollo astronaut ed mitchell was doing tests going to the moon. Details are priceless. Host lets go to phenomenas you visited Edgar Mitchell and Tell White House he was, but you visited him in his last part of his life. Guest yes. The way i got the idea to writee phenomena, the park was researching pentagons brain. Look to go apollo image library, and i found this image and it shows an astronaut standing on the moon, reading a document, and i thought, oh, my god, this is an incredible image. You have advanced science i mean, space travel and proto technology, writing, reading, in this one image, and i had to know what that astronaut was reading on the moon. First i found out it was Edgar Mitchell, apollo 14. Host six until man to step on the moon. Guest yes. I asked him what were you reading on the moon, and he said he was reading a map. So i mean this is gets even better. Man on the moon, reading a map of the moon. N. Why was re reading the map . Because he was lost. And that to me is just a brilliant, beautiful concept. Its so human and it speaks to what we were just talking about with failure, right . How do you define failure . You have a Program Failure but then you also have individual failure, and that often leads to people being lost or feeling like theyre lost. And because i write narrative nonfiction and because its exacter based i care about the people i write about. Want to hear their story. And how it becomes a metaphor for the bigger story. So with mitchell, when he told me the story of being lost on me moon i was just it was remarkable. What he said was to part of the apollo 14 mission keep in mind apollo 14 is after apollo 13, right, the failed moon mission. So much pressure on them to perform, and the geology u. S. Es wented them to go to cone crater, and pull out samples, rock samples and believed the rock samples could perhaps reveal earths origins and the moon. What a concept. Cant have much more pressure on you. And so he and allen shep hoards, that shepard, that was their mention. Mitchell was the pilot on the lander, he lands within 87 feet of the target. And then they get lost locally. Trying to find cone crater. Doesnt get more human. And they had to when they found out they were lost of course this speaks to many issues of perspective, where doo you think you are versus where are you really . In that airless environment they became confused and told nasa you can read the transcripts were lost, we think were here and the heard rates are going up. O nasa gave them 30 more minutes and they couldnt find their way to the crater. And they were told to go home. And so hearing from mitchell about this disappointment, going all the way there, and missing what turned out to be the target by about a thousand feet. Its just amazing, and he shared with me how disappointed he felt on the trip home from the moon. But looking out one of the five windows on the spacecraft, he had what he said was an epiphany. He looked out and to him he realized that man was more than he previously thought. He became fascinated in that moment with the idea of consciousness, with the idea of what is man capable of . Thats why my new book is really about the reaches of what can be known. Mitchell came home, quit nasa, divorced his wife, made new friends and began this trajectory into the world of es and psychokinesis. He suffered because of it. D ho some say he got lost. Thats that what mitchell said. Host why did the suffer . He was red could. You cannot red called. You cannot pull up any article about a journalist saying he conducted esp experiments on the tie from the moon and he surfed. All of his colleagues were these hard scientists. He himself was. He had a ph. D from mit. But if he had what is called a conversion moment. Again, another important theme in the book phenomena. Mena. Scientists, physicists, individual who have conversion moments when dealing with extra sensory perception, psychokinesis and they become absolutely convinced of the reality of the phenomena and they pursue it. Some pursue it to the gates of hell, as i write in the book, and others maintain a very scientific at attitude because the science tick communitymm insists this is pseudo science. M you most adhere to to move from hypothesis to theory and the most important errings its repeatable. T well, esp experiments are not repeatable. Pro this work its fickle by nate tour and those against itks say, thats hogwash. But i love this battle. Theres a real battle between science versus supernatural and it speaks to the idea of what their far reaches of what man can know. Host no phenomena you have government documents saying we cannot not prove this is not real. In a sense theres some doubt there. Th guest i mean, theres doubt absolutely doubtt everybody but the cia cocked that the phenomena concluded that the knock na was real but couldnt repeat it but said it doesnt take away from the fact these Real Laboratory experiments happened. Now what i found most interesting in reporting phenomena, the book, was that when i began researching and reporting was under the impression that the programs were buttoned up in the a mid1990s with the downfall of this one big Defense Department program. But i was astonishinged to learn theyre actually back today,allc under the rubric of advanced cognition, okay . The Defense Department is now merging this idea of the biological, the sixth sense, the office of Naval Research call is the spidey sense. Now the Defense Department is employed neurobiologists, computer technologists, computer engineers, taking individualste who have spidey sense, and a dressed up word fore sp, and theyre looking at their brains and trying to model what is going on anywhere brains and then to accelerate it and ultimately weaponize it because thats the role of the Defense Department. Host have you had a conversion moment when i it comes to those topics. Guest no. The harvard experimental psychologist, back the 50s, created this system to talk about how individuals approach this controversial subjectlk matter, and she said on the one side there were goats. Goats their science tick skeptics who said this is nonsense, hogwash, forget about all of it. Sheep on the other hand were those who were open to the idea of esp, of psychokinesis and i began as a new neutral journalist but looking as, classified documents and see lag the cry thinks, talking to the scientists and physicists, psychics, kind of shift a little bit toward sheep, like i am open to the idea that it is unknown. That the conclusions are not yet in. Really think that is the idea of the far reaches of what can be known. For me its wiser to lean sheep to not discount not throw out the baby with bathwater. There are aliens at area 51 . Lets go to cincinnati my goodness. That is what everyone host thats the question youre always asked. Guest certainly when talking about area 51. So, i interviewed 75 people for area 51. All of whom had direct access to that base. All of whom went on record. One source. Remained anonymous with me. Because he gave me what was then or what still is according to him classified information. He was an Atomic Energy commission scientist and told me the shocking story in the end of area 51 book. Took up 12 pages and what garners the most curiosity. He told me there was a program out there that he worked on, which was a black propaganda program, to create creatures that looked like aliens. And it involved human experimentation. And he was very parsimonious with the details but he was very succinct will going on the report about this, and i interviewed him for over 100 hours, and by the way, stayed in contact with him after the become published after the book published and continued to have discussions with him, and he sticks by the idea. So the read on area 51, is a tell the story, as he told it to me is, they were not aliens. This doesnt mean that theres not extraordinary material that continues to swirl around theita pot about by is in information i stand by everything that he spoke of and that i reported in the book and the stood by it all the way tooo his death. 2. Host welcome to booktv on cspan2. This month were talking with author Annie Jacobsen. Hi books area 51. Operation paper clip. 2014. That the pentagons brain uncensors history of darpa, americas Top Secret Military research agency, came out in 2015. And her most recent book is familiar phenomena just out this year. She will be our guest and if you have questions or americans to make, heres the way you can contact us. Dial in on the telephone host Annie Jacobsen, were you able to get any dollar figure on how much is spent at area 51, how much is spent onnmh researching psychokin kinesis and what did operation paper clip cost. Guest all of the program i wright about are called speck Access Programs special access program. They exist in secret classifications, protocolsthat are far above normal classified protocols. So, it is almost impossible to accurately say what the budgets are. One of the budgets i can give you is the darpa budget. Thats public. So, darpa spends 3 billion a year and that is the case thats basically been the same figure adjusted for inflation going back to darpas origin in 1958. Extraordinary amount of money for 120 Program Managers. But thats only the public figure. So, all of the programs are dealing with black budgets, which means that the money is essentially unknowable. On that subject ill give you one fascinating detail i fine that maybe stands as the best analogy for all of this, in area 51 one of the kind of creators of area 51 was richard bissel, the Deputy Director of the cia, and the way in which he became involved in area 51, if you back up a couple of years, he got a call from allen dulles at cia saying, hey, listen, bissel at the time he was in charge of the Marshall Fund, the plan tree build europe after world war ii. An extraordinary amount of. Ld bissel was in charge of it. And dulles said, and im paraphrasing, can you skim 00 some of the money off the Marshall Fund and give to us us for a Vehicle Credit snap bissel said, you are you sure . Yes. Bissel did it and, and and years late hen was made director of the area 51 projection, he was told thats where the money went. To bissel talked about na his memoir. So you can find in information i as a reporter find information in a whole array of places from memoirs, to papers that are stored at different archives, individual journals, sometime this family gives me access to them. Foia requested, interviews. This the joy of being a. Journalist, many different sources youre pulling from to try and piece together the story for the reader as best you can. Host somebody who plays a part in several of your books, edward teller. Guest almost all of them. I begin the pentagons gain with there is talk bat colassal failure. Others say its a coll sass billion. The is a thermonuclear bomb, teller, the father of the bomb. The average person thinks its the same but perhaps except for in offered magnitude. Thermonuclear weapons, one them e thermonuclear women could take out oeastern seaboard. One exploded in the castle bravo island. I begin the pentagon brain with it. And from from the perspective of witnesses. It was supposed to be 61 2ing me to ton but went out of control. Science kisses couldnt predict the fuse or their own scienceldd experiment and instead it was a runaway theme mow nuclear bomb. A 15 mega tons. Just an astonishing amount of power and energy and apocalyptic but its nature. Host she thoses up in area 51 and pentagon brain and operation paper clip. The mole gamut. Guest he is a super interesting character. Many people would say he had hubris and was trying to outdois his archrival, oppenheimer, other people will sale he saved us from he saved us tromsoe yet invasion because the he pushed the idea of the development of the thermonuclear bomb which some of his kole eggs colleagues called the evil thing. These are Manhattan Project scientists and did not think it could be developed because it could end the world. Teller pushed for and it won. Host also involved with fbie guest necessary, pulled into the program during the reagan administration. He again, im interviewed people who swear by his ben never sense and i mean because the castle bravo bomb, we found out lite later that the russians were only months behind us in the development hover their theme mow nuclear weapon. The battle of the super powers, the u. S. Government must stay ahead and what is interesting is it does stay ahead. So to give credit where credit is due. Whens was interviewing darpa scientist, when we quote into the area of cloning you have thermonuclear weapons as theas origin and today you have autonomous weapons, Artificial Intelligence biotechnology, human cyborg, this is all damp pa and the darpa science and the scientists would say if you woke imtomorrow morning and found out that the chinese or russians or even that dark horse like saudi arabia, presents ther world with the first clone, human clone, would americans say, my god, we have been beaten by an enemy nation . That is why darpa exists and why the Weapons Programs exist, why area 51 exists, why paper clip existed. St me must stay head of the world of the world and. Host 28 billion nor development of the nuclear bomb in your book. 200,000 employees, kept secrett from congress. Oak ridge, tennessee, took moreg power than new york city, more electrical power. Guest i used that as an example, whenever anyone says, oh, come on, you cant really believe the government can keep secrets. Theyre not capable of doing that. Its a conspiracy to think otherwise. Well, cite exactly that. Of course the government can, and does keep secrets. And then the other side of the argument is, it needs to. Host somebody lost to history, that plays a role in the early attempt of this is van bush. Guest he was a scientific director of the Manhattan Project and also of sort of going back in time now to the years right before america entered world war ii. And there was an extraordinary sense of isolationism in america. We didnt want to enter the war and didnt feel we needed to or should but at the same time the president needed to make sure that we were keeping up with the science and technological advances that we knew the nazis were making, thanks to people like einstein who had already come here. So you have secret science thats where i think secret science began with bush, and with the pre war technologies america was hedging her bets, rightly so. Because you cant start your Atomic Weapons Program when the nazis are working on their triggering system. Host Annie Jacobsen is our guest. Lets hear from cj in georgia. Good afternoon. Actually, i have recently been interfacing with a gentlemanac expert that worked for Oak Ridge National laboratory for 40 years. He contacted me because he also knew i worked for one of the largest defense contractors. What is interesting is Manhattan Project that your expert is speaking of, we went in great length about he thought my personality was outgoing enough so wanted to find the children or grab guardian the africanamerican scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, and over the course of the christmas holiday, for about three weeks i contacted various agencies, fraternity organizations and was able to find five children of some of the individuals that worked on the mat hand at that timeat projection Manhattan Projection and one guy who is a doctor in washington, dc now, said that his father kept journals, and was going to be meeting with him here in the next few weeks about those various things. What was very interesting, the gentleman said is his father never talked about his work. And that he would be gone for months, years as a time, and as you indicated, the secrecy. There will over 200,000 employees at actually worked on the Manhattan Project, and was in Oak Ridge National near oak ridge, tennessee, where i was reared, and i never even knew about it until i met this gentleman, who worked for them for many years. So the secrecy that actually exists, both with the area 51 project and Oak Ridge National laboratory and others across the United States is so mindboggling to me, it just were here years later finding out about these secret projected but theres a lot of that and we will never know about it unless actually bring these things up what is going on and often times were not aware ofng why the United States is going a to get the costly projects. Host thank you, cj. Any comment for her. Guest you have touched been a very important theme for this not only the individuals who work on the program but theirdu families, and its why i love tracking down and interviewing the children. Its if the parents have passed, the scientist, because you can kind of get a sense of the secrecy. The children knew nothing and the wives new nothing but a loto of times they have and will share fathers papers that are stored in the attic, and so that becomes this idea of legacy, i think is very interesting and i particularly found that when i worked on paper clip, and i went to germany and interviewed the children of some of these major nazis who worked for hitler and then later worked for the department of defense. Host what was your reception like in germany. Guest either black or white. That really was astonishing, either, no, i dont want to talk to you. Father didnt do anything wrong. Never mind he was a convicted war criminal. Im speaking specifically about a convicted war criminal named otto ambrose who was hitlersas chemical weapons developer and he was convicted of, as i writes in paper clip, of mass murder,mm slavery, genocide, sent to landburg prison after the nuremberg trials and then was released by our u. S. High commissioner, john mccloy, and what went back into the world and then consulted for the Atomic Energy commission. When i tried to track when iu did track down his son and tried to interview him he said mysent father did nothing wrong. He was acquitted. On the other hand i interviewed other children of major nazis who had a very different take and were very thoughtful and remorseful and courageous in sharing with me the profound difficulties of that legacy they must live with. The son cannot be judges by the father but its an extraordinary burden to bear. So interviewing people that were that forthcoming with me about the complications of that legacy, i mean, feel like that undergirdses the book with significance that is deeplysi emotional. Host 1600 nazi scientists came over via operation paper clip. How deep did their tentacle goes in the country. Guest they were in every Weapons Program we were financing there was a top nazi. That is a gross generalization but i think it is also very accurate. Certainly from my reporting. In my book, i focus on 21 of the nazis who found to be extreme cases, extreme meaning they during the war they work directly with hitler,others and so when you think about that, then they were working for us, with us, thats real drama in there. So, i looked at 21 but there are 1600 and just from looking the big files and sort of mapping out where everyone went, yes, they were in every one of our Weapons Programs. Host i think i read that one of those nazi scientist was the fir director or the Kennedy Space center. Guest kurt davis. They still give out the kurt davis award, this kind of the most innovative thinker and i was shocked to find out because the document is was able to get from a freedom of information act indicate that davis was a hard core nazi. He even wore the ss uniform to work in nazi germany. He turned in a colleague, ratted out a colleague, for saying mean things about hitler, literally, and this guy what picked up byew the gestapo and were guying an award, called out the organization that gave the ward and he was defensive and said davis was Great Innovator and did all thosing toes about the apollo but i said what do you say to person who says he was nazi and he response was very interesting elm said no one has ever asked me that question before. So we have journalism to present the facts and let people decide what they think about those facts. Host was it known con term prayerly he was a former naziown and now running the Kennedy Space center, these guys . Was that known . Guest very important question. Absolutely not. Of and from the declassified documents, i learned that nott only did nasa know about their past but a the war comp miss complicit in making shower dinot got out von braun was being pulled into it by journalists who was asked by questions. He was told by nasa to say, if youre asked, your as soon as, be ive been thoroughlyd investigated by the u. S. Military. And he had been thoroughly investigated. They just didnt reveal what thh investigation had found. Host so you were able too make some inroads in germany. Have you been to darpas headquarters here in the Washington Area . Have you actually set foot in area 51 . Guest i have not been toac darpas headquarters, theyre very secretive letting anybody there. Le they like to present the idea that they are a beneficent organization, and they do do some great things. We her the internet. The results of their work have profoundly impacted society andl maded easier for people but darpas job as was indicated in this early mandate, in 1958, is to create vast Weapon System of the future. So darpa is very secretive about letting anyone in. Area 51, no journalist has ever been there, including me. I was taken by a group of former Manhattan Project scientistsro when they were still alive, to the called the 1 2 da testve site which the Nevada Test Site that align with area 351. Area 51 is over the hill. Host youre in guest i was actually in the test site, which is where all the bomb craters are and you are drive through the desert and see where an old safe was blown up,n like a Big Giant Bank safe to try to these were parts of the test to see what would survive a Small Nuclear blast. Train tracks, the rubble that is out there in the desert is remarkable. The area is all concealed. So i went there and i kind of saw area 51 five miles away but thats the closest i got. Ar host travis is calling in from eureka, california. Hi, travis. Youre on with author angieit jacobsen. Caller hello. Good afternoon. Im interested in remote viewing and what, if any, evidence you researched . Did you find to be the most convincing in favor of it being a fact . Guest so thank you for the question remote view ising another order for extrasense re perception, term created by the cia in the 1970s to destigmatize the concept of esp, the concept of psychics, psychic functioning and became part and parcel to the programs that went on for in the next 25 years across the cia, across the department of defense, over at dia, the defense Intelligence Agency and in phenomena there are extraordinary Success Stories of remote viewing. Locating hostages, down its aircraft and also colassal failures and i tell both of those stories in the book and i let you decide, but when you look at the fact of what some of these psychics were able to accomplish, were able to see to know the unknowable, with a cia or Defense Department handler, sitting with them inside an electronic shielded room so theres no way they could be getting information any other way other than this mysterious sixth sense which no one has been able to explain. So i would say the remotebe viewing Success Stories exist and i write about them in the book. Host the pentagons brain was a final just for the pulitzer. And this email comes in from chris in houston, texas. And he or he asks how does darpa research make its way from being purely military to something a company can sell to the pock at the public at large. Guest lets talk about gps. Satellite technology, interestingly, finds some of its origins at area 51. Richard bissel, who we talk about earlier, the sort of mayor of area 51, along with dr. Budty whelen, they wore were work, satellite technology, homes weiss work. That about that as a concept in terms of innovation. The whole military runs with the satellite system being the center. Wi but in the 50s and 60s these ideas were just coming jacques. And there was a mandate over the defers department to create what we now knows gps. To really come to fruition. But when darpa finally was able to make these systems work and this is kind of at the end of the vietnam war, this was, it was a military targeting technology, gps that you have in your smartphone. Organization was going to develop gps for the consumer. And that is why the Clinton Administration declassified Gps Technology because we wanted america to be able to be the innovators and the primary drivers of the commercial world and at the second what you see. L, you are on tv. Ms. Jacobson, in your book phenomenon did you mention a person named ingle swan. They called him the originalpsyc super psychic. He played a very significant in the early years of that cia program and also in the years of the Defense Department program. There is quite a bit you can read about in that. He was a very charismatic person and a fascinating character. M . I hung out with him in california and 69 and i was a scientologist and thats why my questions was anybody taken seriously in the phenomenon program and they have contempt for the people there reached ot three and other levels. I can do what cost you hundreds of thousands ofe dollars with my hands tied behind my back. The other thing that i woulde, like to mention to you that may be interested in. And maybe some other problem time not on this. I can contact you if you are interested. They are a study in the university of virginia done about 30 years ago that is scientifically proves things that tie in to what youre doing. It would be an extended conversation i dont know if you want to have it now . We appreciate your calling it i think you do have a website. Will put that up on the screen if you wish to contacts anybody. The scientology questions interesting. Of course the Intelligence Community in the Defense Department were extremely into scientologist but youre absolutely correct that others in the program have been involved in scientology and it becomes a great point of contention and also there are some mittens things that remain. A psychic that worked at the same time for the cia. And his name was pat price. And pat price he outperformed him in the psychic realm if you will because were as swan was incredibly gifted at using his talents if you would to describe situations narratively pat price could act pull actual names, numbers and figures off of documents and classified facilitieses thous thousands of miles away. He was so good at this that a number of security investigations highlevel investigations came down on him because people could not possibly fathom how he could know what he did. He died in 1975 under very mysterious circumstances. One of them is that the church of scientology killed him. Do conspiracy theaters come to your book events. Rists co i did this great event. Gue the scientific skeptic at caltech. He filled the auditorium and mustve sat 400 people in because its in pasadena right near jpl Propulsion Laboratory s it was like half of the people in the room were the big rains and the other half were conspiracy theorists. And we have this lively rock is to be not just me asking questions but then the questions are going back and forth and sometimes theyy werent questions they were shouting at one another but i think these are all important readers to have because i findht that conspiracy theories often had roots in truth and i write i write about this and every n one of my books where you have an alleged Conspiracy Theory which is actually part of a black propaganda campaign. And again i am able to unearth these documents and have them declassified and demonstrate that they are not always exactly as they seem. Or the c would any of them exist if it was not for the cold war in russia. They are all a product of the arms race between the nine seats in the soviet union and often china comes in. George, email i believee bob that bob lessard said that element 115 was a power source for the Alien Technology that he was trying to reverse. Since then element 115 has been synthesized and is apparently not possibly a credible power source any comments . I write about my interview with him. But what i think the individual is speaking to is the fact that these ideas and mysteries someone called them conspiracies they are not going away. People continue to be interested because they feel like the questions have not been answered. And that of course of course speaks to this idea that we been talking about aboutut Government Transparency and what can be known what we have to wait decades to have these documents be classified. You also rent write about janet airlines. Is the private airlines that fly from las vegas to area 51 and it has its own conspiracy within i have someone contact me just recently and say give me the Airline Schedules and they stopped flying during the day apparently. Again the mysteries in conspiracy filled within one another and they dont want to end. You described the interior have you been on janet hine. If to be invited like certainly area 51. Ther what is interesting is that in all of my books researching the superman of science lo and behold almost everyone said i read your area and the one book. Le graph, one of the leading scientists in my new book he was out at eight area 51. What were you doing out there, i can tell you. Great program. My father was a b29 pilot where the gate took off. He never talked much about it but he ended up at bell aircraft in Niagara Falls new york there was a program there i can remember a picture of him eventually he got into the x2 programs. I never heard much about whatever happened to him. After he was at bell. The Bell Helicopter plate of course. What can you tell me about him and where he ended up in what he ended up doing. There is another former nazi general operation paperclip scientists and that was walter dorn berger. I write about him in operation paperclip as well. Ting he have an interesting introductory. All the way through the Apollo Program and then retired and went into private enterprise. Then he was struck it with cancer and died. There is a fascinating story where he loops and in the book that ive just written of all people who was an asset and have got this. They have the Defense Department very concerned. Many people tell you that hes a magician the dod did not think so. The cia did not think so. Not and they were concerned that what he could do was think of the electronic system. They were concerned whether he could bend the spoon. He could do the same andd disrupt the electronic system. When he came to the United States he met with warren von brown. There is a photograph i have of the two of them but von brown was fascinated with him. He got his watch to stop and he made the Statement Like im no a no scientific explanation for how he did this. And he have an old desk calculator that have stopped working he have to start working just by touching it. This mystified him. In because he was such a powerful figure it raised a lot of eyebrows. We have on this program a year or two back. The men who stare at goats. Does that tie into some of the things that you write about. It does. One of the things that i demonstrate over time happened with the phenomenon program was that the cia was under the impression that this town which is still in the high pass at this stage. Enhanced perception the doctors believed that it was biological that it was individualistic think of how i know i cannot sing in the shower and then you listen to his amazing music and thats biology. That is the metaphor that the cia used. Individual people have some kind of extra gift the rest of us didnt. Nt too the Defense Department took a different approach. They believed that soldiers could be trained to become psychic. And the grave problems arose because the cia advised against this the Defense Department does pursued it. Of r and it led to a lot of problems within these programs you had soldiers trying to be psychic and have very little success. At the same time give individual people who were actually psychic if you will and having success it created a catch 22. The Defense Department didnt want to believe that peoplee were psychic a lot of corporations are involved in a lot of your books. The rain corporation. A lot of money to be made on these projects. A this is a very important subject defense contracting. The wording area that i saw when i was reporting the pentagons brain and i learned so you want to talk conspiracy they come up in everybodys in the world of conspiracy. E they are allegedly before i interviewed a lot of them one idea is that they are theidea i illuminati of the defense world. Right before he died he was the founder and worked in many of the projects for decades. In the adjacent scientist what i found to be most interesting where they were fulltime professors. In parttime defense scientist. Er they would get together in the summer and solve whateverar conundrum he was facing. They were called the superman of science. And what i learned in the recent era is there has been a shift in the Defense Department has moved it to the side. They still consult that theynt are not as important. What is important now in termsw of setting policy and making decisions about what science projects will be pursued in the future is the organization i inside the pentagon called the defense Science Board. As i write very specifically i e if you look at the individuals who are on the defense Science Board thereth almost all fulltime defense contractors. They are not parttime defense scientist. So what you have is what eisenhower warned us against. The very people that are deciding which Weapon Systemssu, the pentagon will pursue are the same individuals who stand to make an extraordinary amount of money on those Weapon System. On those Weapon System. It is really managed by the hundred and 20 Program Managers 3 billion in the hands of a hundred 20 Program Managers they have extraordinary power to start and stop programs. La they look outside of the military establishment as well. And work with universities and research labs. This is the true definition of blue sky research. The question is, do we like where they are leading us. St of most of the really intense programs these are classified programs. Lifornia thank you for holding your on with the author. Thank you for taking my call. Al i was just wondering youre talking about money now. Is there any mechanism by which the United States gets money from the companies i know if you read about it. They developed the stream. Are we making deals where we get paid for that stuff the way the money floors it flows out of darpa into the hands of the laboratories that are developing the Weapons Program. Apple has a product that itey wants to develop they would be paid. Hank you. That it wants to develop theyy would be paid. Lets hope that that doess answer the question. I think hes looking as if theres a return on this, investment. Let me get a better example. I interviewed some scientists who were working down at uc irvine. This is the idea. The scientists believe that humans were one day capable of regenerating their own limbs. Er interesting in terms of of wounded warriors. But this kind of research is 20, 30, years out. The scientist told me who is going to fund that. O no one. They are willing to invest in very early Laboratory Research that leads to extraordinary new things. They were very grateful for this funding because it allows them to continue their research. And to seek grants elsewhere. There is a give and take in this world that has to do with money coming in and new programs going out. One of the characters in the brain michael goldblatt. Who is he. He was the individual who really took biological science to a new level. So back up for backup permanent. Researching the panel gone i was fascinated by the idea the hard science of those days did not involve biological science. So that happened ironicallyso when the walking down. And you have soviet biological weapons engineers defecting to the United States. And bringing with them the big reveal that the soviets were breaking the biologicalio weapons treaty and developing these horrific weapons mixingbo things like ebola and influenza. To create apocalypticea results. It led to this idea that we l need to look inside this body. We need to look at human biology. About that same Time Computers were now in the 90s. We are moving towards nanotechnology. Apt no in the Defense Department now becomes very interested in the idea of human physiology and what individual soldiers are capable of. And how you can ultimately create super soldier. There was a lot of kickback from this. One of the programs that sums us up ultimately to be able topt put Computer Technology inside humans. And early prototype. This they were able with a chip in his brain they were able to steer the rat through a maze. People caught cried foul. This is at the edge of ethics. You cannot be doing this kind of thing. The program was somewhat curtailed and the 911 happened. There is an extraordinary amount of funding and now these programs today that i write about at length involveri pushing the biology of humans in another direction. And ultimately merging man and machine. Be relegat to create what used to be relegated to Science Fiction and as a human cyborg. He was recruited it was a pretty interesting story about how he developed a system that have a Sterilization Technology. On awake of the bacteria scandals that really put the fast food restaurants in a lot of trouble. So the Sterilization Technology he thought there had to be a military application for this. D darpa agreed with him. Kathleen is calling from los angeles. I just i just wanted to speak about ions. The organization. Mitchell started to marry science and physiologists. I just had a comment because as a acupuncturist i have a Youtube Video of me fixing a paralyzed dog. In his last two years with the ions convention in chicago. He spoke about his career and been on being on the other side of the moon they all went towards our side. I was able to talk to him on the phone. And ask him about the evidence that armstrong and his colleagues had run into aliens when they were going and coming back from the moon. Not to the public light we would hear about. They were reporting that thereg were people around them and aliens that were with them on the moon. T have you ever had that experience. Nd he de he declined at the time. I dont know if he has things he didnt want to share. Right now our main project is the extinction level event. After six years. Why are these things ignored. What is the ion society. The institute of noetic sciences. We do a lot of research they have a campus up in marin and they do a lot of psycho Connecticut Research and itss very science based. It showing the underlying thing. We have some more possibilities and potentials in our body. This organization is just looking into that. Edgar mitchell came back from them in after that. Fr made all new friends. Epipha and started this organization. It became a front for the cia. I foun i found that pass need. Very inv he became very involved in all of this. In these actually the individual who brought geller to the United States. He and he was the front for the cia in doing that. They needed to mask the idea that he was actually being tested by the cia. You familiar with kathleen in her work. William is in new york. I have a couple of questions. If you know anything about the philadelphia experiment in the time travels. And the alien bases on the far side of the moon. How they breed weave their weight through this. Su because i write about the subjects from a cia or dod filter for me its interesting to look at how they deal with these subject matters. Because in the book phenomenon if you are prone to esp or psychokinesis for a lot of these individuals that leads to other ideas that are along the lines of what the color was talking about. As a report in the book. It became a real problem because they didnt know how to set ground rules like you can think and talk to aliens but has to occur at home outside of the military environment. And instead you a couple of these individuals her were using government time and money to conduct their own experiments using remote viewing to try to do thesethat e ideas that they are talking about. The declassified documents is fascinating they were concerned. Ultimately they have that. Are you aware of positions were tired of working that actively debunk paranormal phenomena for the benefit of the public at large. It is important to address both sides of the aisle on this issue. Theres no doubt that magicians can bend spoons using pre digitization. Tha whether or not someone likequesn him can bend a spoon not using a magic trick. I write at length about that debate your aware of the james randy offer to pay 19. 2 anyone who can exhibit undern controlled conditions. If so have you talked to mister randy. I interv i am fascinated because i write about war and weapons both personal, political and global. And randy and geller and the decadelong a decadelong battle over the subject. On the both all these decades later and by their ideas. The reader might be interested to see that debate play out. Hopefully from a neutral point of view. Shown with the dod the of randy and geller. How they all played a role because their feud elevated all of this. Th they are trying to keep it all secret. Bob, you are on. Great to talk to youu again. Aga im interested in annies book. I am really interested in a couple of threads that you have in there. It was the research that was done. One the other thing is the degree to which there was something of an arms race in terms of trying to figure out how you could explore the military uses. The other thing is i used to live in california and i was fascinated with his work. Did you have an opportunity to interview him for your book. And then i have another think i will leave you with it. And since youve done a lot of investing in reporting you mentioned earlier hes have a fee in semi different strands. Thing there is a new thing that has been emerging the first concept. With the effects of emt. It is now being touted as possible solutions to mitigating climate change. Thank you bob. Your first question is super interesting because it speaks to the origins of the psychic program. And it pulls from that original cash. One of t one of the early ideas of the cia was following with the psychokinesis had to do with which was a fancy name for a drug. Of hallucinogenic mushroom. That the shaman would know. They will be have that. And it would be whats in the future. It have prophecy in intelligence collection. They hired a medical dr. Named andrea who arctic. He has afoot in many conspiracy theories as well. Through all my books. The mushrooms for intelligence collection purposes. One of the details i found fastening. The cia sent one of the scientists in 1953 to one of the largest mushroom growers in america. Made a secret deal with themma and said the plan was that we were to find these mushrooms in mexico and then bring them back to the nine states and farm them and do all of these the volume of experiments that the cia intended seems pretty significant. Of course, the program and the scientist to lead this mission. After he came back. He wrote a huge Magazine Article about it in Time Magazine and blew the cover of the program so the cias Mushroom Program fell by the wayside. Host it seems like when you start pulling the thread in one of your stories all the sun there is 100 threads they have toha pull out here. And you must be careful of the rabbit hole. You done a lot of tunnels. Its important to realize that some of these programs that ends. Others, had different incantations like the psychic programs of today. She has four books out. Area the one. Uncensored history of the top military history came out in 2015. Any relation to you . The sch how does she schedule her work. Gue thats something that is nearu and dear to my heart which has to do with process. It also has to do with early failure i think im interested in meeting ive been writing for a very long time since i i was 15. I went to boarding school with a typewriter. And no one was really reading what i was writing for decades. The fact and now that i have the great privilege of having people read me inspires me to keep at it and keep writing. Wria i encourage anyone who is writing to find that idea. The only failure is quitting. How do i schedule, i write fulltime. Im always think about what im writing and why am i net why i am writing it. Trying to balance out what are the concerns that we want to be taking about today. Filtering that back to where did a lot of these problems come from and where are the solutions. I love the eisenhower idea. Ech s he spoke in the military industrial conference that is so famous. What often gets left out in that as a second part of that speech. He talks about an alert and knowledgeable citizen tree. How you balance security. What a simple idea. Ju just being alert and knowledgeable. Thats how i approach all my books. Then i get to go out and interview the people who are on the ground doing the hard work. And tell their stories in my book so i can read them. Its built in the sense on the last one. What is your next topic. I always hate to talk about the next topic. So im actually not going to talk. Absolutely. Int im writing about the cia. I will hint about it. Its a really interesting new story. Do you right at write at home and you write offline. Nitely most definitely irate at home. Have an office i live in los angeles to the garden. Thats my office out there. Preceding and its small enough not to be distracted. My computer is the most definitely connected to the internet. Compute i am able to not look at the internet all the time. Ge res but it is a huge resource for me. I also do a lot of writing longhand. Certainly thats how i begin my chapters. I find the brain and the human brain know how Much Technology we have around its works at its own speed. Ke simil its kind of similar. I know how to begin a chapter. Le usually the first couple of pages are always written that way. Do you still write poetry. They are dedicated to kevin kevin is my husband. Inley. The joy of writing is that you get to hang out with the family. That has to do with the quality of life. S to do so if you enjoy your life if you love who youre with then you are inspired i think to dodo interesting and unchallenging things. My husband is a commercial actor and hes been in every mmercial you can imagine. I think we have some b roll of him in a car commercial the first commercial ever shown on cspan. He does that fulltime. T does he does that fulltime. A little bit of entrepreneurs. Th when your creative and thoughtful. Adopt i dont think weve seen him yet. Driving a bunch of animals around. We had been married for coming up on 21 years. Any jacobson is our guest. We will continue some of this. In some of her favorite writers. [inaudible] [music] [music] [music] [music] new line any jacobson you said you are reading or have read the lost city of the monkey god. Abo is an archaeological quest. I think that their heart and partial to human nature. They always bring in the idea of success in human failure. Who are we and where do we come from. The more we learn about the past i think it gives us ideas about the future about where were going. It takes me back to phenomenon. The reaches of what can be known. Im always fascinated when wefa have this. And then archaeology reveals actually it was a little different. Do you think darpa new Cell Phone Technology was going or 40 or 50 years ago was can be prominent . Me because all the way back to john juan norman. Spring i call him the original pentagon brain. And he was the inventor of the first computer that contained its own instruction. Ns. We are talking in the 1940s now and that basement of the princeton institute. They created the computer they called the maniac. It was a giant cookie later when you ask where are we now. This is an amazing into doug. He was so smart. He built this computer and originally in 1947 he would try to bead at a numerical calculation. His assistant would feed him the calculation. He was able to beat the computer originally. And then one day it is really a profound moment. One day computers would be able to think. What we have today and the smart phone pools back to the origin story. In the smartphone the first generation smartphone had more technology than that. When it said ed mitchell to the men. Who is thinking about the future. Certainly someone like don von norman. Jrc l these are not names that we know. Not look later again he is called the Johnny Appleseed of the internet. He was a darpa scientist called upon in the jfk era to do something about c2. K of tec think of the technology we are talking about the iphone. Jfk looking at a red phone. If you think theres a Nuclear Strike you have to call them. Think about the dialing capacity. Darpa was brought on board to try to speed it up. They were the size of a room. Cap when they were working on this programs he came up with this idea. He came up with this idea thatca one day people would be able to communicate via computers. We caught the intergalactic computer network. He planted those original seeds. And then he have capable people took over. What are the reaches of whatwh we can know. What can we know next. That has to do with my husband. And also i love it. I love the idea of storytelling. I love archetypes and the role in the new book for that reason. These are basic tenants of narrative storytelling and also of how they live their lives do they want to be the hero. As part of mythology. N the ea for those in the eastern and central time zones. For those in the eastern and central time zones. 271. Our they will also scroll through some of the social media sites and you can also make a comment via social media 1947. Roswell new mexico. What happened . Look, the myth of roswell as part and parcel to certainly to area 51 and certainly to the idea that the government keep six threats. That is when allegedly a ufo crash in the military stepped in and took the evidence away. It links it links up to area 51 as i said because of the source of my told me that he was part of the team that years later received the what crashed att roswell. And this is where the origin story of the area. Host w when you read your accounting of july 9. Believable. Believable. This is perspective. You talk about the fact that there were a bulletin sent out. That this was found. An hour later they came back and they have another bulletin and that there were 47 witnesses to this whole thing to this whole thing. The trucks been loaded. Coff these are documented facts. Ke like the jfk conspiracy there are numerous people we cant even put a number on it that spend so much time going over the precise details i go over them broadly. I think the most important because there actually what we would call back checkable. And we have a big mysteries and considerable disparate discrepancies within this information i think its fair t to raise questions about what actually went on and why are you covering this up. There is a coverup if you are youre going to change yourr story. Good afternoon. N. Two questions. Did they do any reviews in those books. In the writings. Do you think the current election of president with allum of his military do you think thats a dark cia project. Thank you. Im not familiar with any of those books. Zero im sorry. I tend to read more fiction than nonfiction. I attempt to stay out of politics. I think its more valuable to maintain neutrality in terms of political systems, t agendas. Because i am reporting on theel Intelligence Community. That doesnt change. Er, th the leader in the commuter chief changes. I know and work with many people on both sides of the isle. And i see their point. I see both sides of the aisle point. Im more interested in the battle an individual quest and im most interested in the outcome. Im most interested in the outcome. Lets go to operationp. Paperclip for all of this. I think you can find this. Have we morally compromised ourselves as a nation. Did he ends just go through. That is a perfect question. And here is why . When i was working on paperclip might editor and i would have conversations about making sure that i was showing both sides of the argument. And if there is any book that i was prone to having a opinion about it was operation paperclip. Im not jewish by the way. What was interesting to me was that i did try to maintain that neutrality. I tried to show up for why there wasnt argument. It was important to bring the nazi scientist here. Was it a moral compromise. In my opinion yes. It felt that way when i was writing it. My job was to show both sides of the aisle. It leans right lets say. They said annie, im so glad you wrote this book. You showed part and parcel why we have to have this program. We need to bring them here because we have to have the cold war. They would say annie, thank you for writing this book. You show that this is morally reprehensible. We never should have brought these nazis here no matter what. Cel, t they have the same book. Which speaks to my curiosity about perspective. About how and people interpret the same facts. Thats part of human nature. The ability that we have to see things our way. I think when you have a change of heart others would call it a change of mind. Everyo almost everybody who works in that role has whats called a conversion moment where they have a change of heart with a have a change of mind their life changes and the results are dramatic. O i think i remember reading this. He have a conversion but he was born again as a christian. I did not interview him andnt i did not interview any of the family members its hard to really know the reality behind that. And the motivations lets say. Theres no way of knowing if it was personally motivated from the heart or whether it was a motivation from his handler present listen if you pull some good religion into the mix you will be more appealing to the average american than the former nazi scientist with a strong german accent. Does this tie in at all to the project over in switzerland and france does it tie in and out with some all with some ofpa the research they are doing. W o. I wouldnt doubt it because all of the science is interconnected in an interesting way. And we in america they are always there always looking at whats happening around the world. D. Going back to that the that we cannot be beaten that is what happened in 1958. They made it into space before we did. And that has never happened since. Email and this is from jim. Given the knowledge of the soldiers being experimented on during the vietnam war era. Cete . Human testing is an interesting and problematic area. And pr i write about the origin of the code. , and and then an in an area 51 i write about how the code was our scientist working for then. Really in the various experience that were made transparent by the Clinton Administration. W these are where the documents and very important to look at. Because it shows you what is possible. What is possible flying in the face of the code. Im always on the lookout for that kind of work. Se i did not find any. Dave, cleveland ohio. Any jacobson is our guest. Think you for taking my call. My question is concerning 19575e that was a year of this but dick the year sputnik and also te life article with the with the colored photographs. And in april of 57 and they have project 57 it occurred right before the nuclear test series. Plum this was near area 51. Esert an i wonder if you research into area 51 if you can give us anyrc more details about project 57 that might be of interest. Th back in 1989 i was delivering mail and have met a man. That was about cloud samplers. I was able to tour the test site in 1985. I have quite a lot of documents. With the public reading room down there. And i actually had in my hands some uncensored documents. It was quite a thrilling day. Im wondering in particular about project 57. I read about it at length. It was a fascinating task. We did do that dispersal. And i tell it to the perspective of the Security Guard out there it is extraordinary what went on the kind of fast and loose operations that the aec was conducting. I also write about cloud sampling because that is part and parcel to this. Many of the test pilots were interviewed including the great herbie stockman it was whe the first man to fly over the soviet union in 1956 bringing home the photographs of 400 thousand square feet of the soviet union had been unseen by the Intelligence Community before. Stockman then went on and was a nuclear test pilot. Again, this all loops around together. Absolutely. That was the cias first fly plane program. And it was the you too. So much of this is about we do this and then the soviets would beat us we built it to fly high enough that it would be out of range of service to air missiles. They built up their service to air missiles. They Start Building the new airplane. That was his incredibly secret project at area 51. Many of the same scientisttists, gave me my original scoop worked on the u2. And then work on oxnard. Would it surprise you today if congress or the Vice President were aware of some of the things that are going on or even the president. Much to my astonishment when i was writing area 51 and i was talking to a source about this incredibly secret program that involved human experiments out there. Crosso and i said,. Red during the cln administration when so much of this that these nefarious human experiments out at the test site can public . And the source of the president did not have a need to know. That is an interesting statement. Host roy, new castle indiana please go ahead. Caller yes. Kudos to cspan and you, peter, and to Annie Jacobsen. And i just have a little question here. Ive talked with carol rawson that was there for a while, ight arm to von braun in his i have communicated with her in skype and talking to her and i wonder if you know about her whereabouts and if she is still involved in dr. Steven greer and such. Guest i dont. Host do any of those names ring a bell besides van brown . Guest nope. Host where did he end up . Guest he worked in the defense Contracting Industry but from my read on documents about him from the government is after the appaollo Program Ended drupy it because disdresing distressing. It was hard being the highest scientist on the Apollo Program and people gave up on that program. Very difficult time with the vietnam war. And von brown, the way i read it, lost his way and he became despondent and i write about that in paperclip and then he is diei diagnosed can cancer and died quickly. Host greg, go ahead. Caller i have a question about the state of the art Aircraft Technology in the u. S. Because the sr 71 and e12 spy planes were 1950ss the f 17 stelt fighter was 1970 technology and the b2 bomber is 1980s technology that is a long time ago. Have you heard about the current state of the exotic aircraft being operated by the United States and their capabilities . And just a footnote. I know about the 370 space plane one that is still in orbit after 600 days in space. Guest i think you nailed it with that last program. That is one of the more interesting ones i know about and write about it in the the pentagons brain an uncensored history of darpa. The way i would prefrace that with is if you look back and consider going 240 Miles Per Hour then under these secret programs you can figure out what must be going on today based on the information you talked about, the programs we know about, and then you kind of can, you know, speculate on what is unknown. And again those programs are kept secret because they are part and parcel to National Security. The air has always been important space to dominate for the Defense Department. Host from page 364 o of phenomena. They used this technology to find saddam husseins weapons. Guest you had some soldiers were who said they were psychoing and retiring from the military and offering their psychic services outside the military. That is that situation you are talking about. That led to a grave problem because the protocols were still classified. By bringing the very subject to the public that was oppressed because the journalist found it interesting as they say. It took a couple more years for the program to be revealed but that was a former soldier going outside the military offering private service do is the u. N. Host since robert lazar in 1989 revealing area 51 to the general public has there been someone else who has done this . Guest that is a good question. Not specifically related to area 51. Certainly the numbers of people interested in that are phenomenal. And yes, they have revelations all the time but i think lazar learned an interesting you know came to an interesting conclusion serm in my interview with him about what happens if you reveal something you are not supposed to reveal. And the Defense Department learned how to deal with people who say outlandish things or people who say things that they can spin as outlandish or, you know, reflect as outlandish. Also, keep in mind, when he made the declaration the world was a different place in terms of smart phones. Information is key now. You can learn so many Different Things in different ways so it doesnt have the same power lazar had going on abc. Host when you put in the request to visit area 51 with whom did you put it in and what was the answer . Guest i requested to go with ed loback. I presented it as wouldnt this be a terrific way to make transparent to the public and the response is brilliant. It is also true to form and they spin around theificates the facts because they cant actually refer to i refer to it as groom lake and maybe they will take the bit but they wouldnt. It was like your ruquest to go somewhere we cant say exists is denied. What is area 12 . There are kinds of areas and area 13 is where there was the platonium test. Area 25 was where they were building a space ship to take us to mars. You could write a different back about every one of those areas out of there. Host if you drive north of vegas on state with a highway 95 you go past or through Nellis Air Force base. Is that where area 51 is . Guest it is north in a different detection because it is inside the test site but nellis played an interesting role because there are stories about pilots everyone knows you cannot fly over area 51 and every now and then someone puts their wing in the tip of the box and there is a report, most which is redacted, but they were canned and grubbed and also have. That part of the country with all these different classified areas out there, if you look at a map between china lake and california and area 51 in nevada, the test sites, these are huge swaths of land where classified military technology is fully underway. Host when you requested to visit the headquarters of darpa what you describe in your being an arlington suburb here what was your response . Guest same thing. They really want to believe to control the message and the idea is if you keep a journalist out you are definitely controlling the message. That is an ongoing source of frustration because i do think there is a responsibility by government to try to make the facts known and try to make some of these facilities able to people like myself. But what darpa said, which they do have a good point, they are not a laboratory. It is just administration going on or so they say. They will say you will do better visiting the actual laboratories and i did. Host there is darpas headquarters on your screen. Does nasa have an official position on edward nickel and his turn toward psychokinesis . Guest i dont know about an official position but from reading the documents i could get a sense of, i dont know want to say disappointment, but that is the word that comes to mind. They like individuals who are part of the big programs to stick with the message so to speak. He had some wild ideas and became very interested in the idea about aliens at the end of his life and spoke about it at length. You kind of go where the love is for lack of a better expression. He was getting even nastiness from nasa. They brought a lawsuit against him over equipment once. He is being embraced by people who have conspiracy ideas about alien and he leaned toward that way and, again, it cost him. But i find that really interesting. What i also found fascinating was mitchells relationship with geller. I interview geller at length in phenomena and found him to be extraordinary and interesting and dynamic. I wound up at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus house raising questions about why he left the cia program. When i interviewed mitchell, he spoke so highly of geller and when i met geller he spoke highly of mitchell. To Mitchell Geller represented everything possible. The idea of far reaching men and together mitchell represented the great explorer, the great hero, because he was young when mitchell went to the moon and he told me, ed mitchell, knowing about gellers appearance, mitchell sent him a photo on the moon and signed it. And geller said this made him feel amazing in his moment of doubt because he was getting attacked by james randy and every other scientific skeptic and dragged through the mud and he said mitchell gave him the stamina and energy and the hopefulness to go forward. So they just have this fascinating friendship over the deca decades that i found mystemyste. Host finish the story about being at Benjamin Netanyahus house with geller. How did you get there . Guest i was interviewing geller in israel and i specifically wanted to spend a lot of time with him because i figured that he was a magician do doing this act magicians can bend spoons by doing a trick. I figured if i spend enough time with him i might be able to see a crack in the vail so to speak and i never saw it. I spent 810 hours a day walking all over tel aviv with him. And everywhere we went, and he is so famous, everyone asked him to bend a spoon and he did. Host you saw it happen . Guest i saw it happen. He doesnt necessarily touch the spoon is what i found fascinating. I saw him bend a pair of hookah tongs for two north africans there and they are crafted to withstand extraordinary heat. The it was remarkable. The one situation i told him i wasnt buying was the idea he worked for the massad. He told me who we were young that he idolized had him and going back the jung and archetypes and i thought maybe this is him going back to being young. I told him i wasnt buying it and he got angry with me. He has a very big ego by his own admittance. And then a few hours later we walk up to the residents of the Prime Minister and what was amazing is everybody knew him. The protective details, the agents will you bend a spoon for us and he was bending spoons. It had this very surreal quality to like there is something going on outside the scope the journalists need to know. I found it fascinating. We were sitting there in the residents and geler disappeareded in the back and i wonder is this how the massad works . I dont know. Host it makes you more of a sheep than a goat. Guest it make me more of a sheep than a get. It is that kind of experience but really it makes me open to that idea. I am open to the idea because i am open to the idea of it is a craft to determine the you know, do you think about and what can be known . What is man capable of . If you think of the world we live in now, and this astonishing wait of technology . Jung said it when he and the noble prize winner were distichousing the esp date and jung said you can only judge what is possible by the criteria of the age. Think about this. We have been talking about this for hours. Where we are with Computer Technology, where we are with space travel. This is Science Fiction decades ago and now it is all possible. So, if you allow yourself to hold that idea and not be so judgmental against these ideas that yes, they have been aligned with the super natural and aligned with magic. But if you can just hold the idea and think about it i think there is more to be revealed. Host don, houston, texas, Annie Jacobson is your guest. Caller thank you for taking my call. I was in the air force for eight years. I was ad vandburg for five years. I worked with nasa and the 22nd quarter. I met paul sagin, and the person over blue book. I saw a number of officers landing on a private aircraft. We were told they were majestic 12 people. And early afternoon three ufos passed over our base and all the power went out. We were not a Nuclear Armed missile base but they test fired missiles that would be used if we did go to war with russia. Host don, did you see the ufos yourself . Caller yes, i was at dog site when they passed over and my work partner was outside the silo and other people were standing in the area. They came to a stop and i remember i looked at him and he looked at me and he said am i seeing what i am seeing or what . He kind of laughed and he said i am not sure but he said, you know,i dont think we have anything in our industry that can do these kinds of thinks, burke. And i said i think you are right and they angled off to the right at a high rate of speed and came back about 34 minutes later and hovered over the missile sites and headed out toward where the nasa communication and satellites. Host are you convinced, dawn don, these were ufos . Caller before this happened, i walked the fence and didnt say yeah, we have alone or no, we arent. But i am an Irish Catholic and i told a person it would be a shame if the god who created the universe put us out her on this all alone. Host thank you for that. Guest ufo, unidentified flying object. There are two sides of the aisle. Those who say they come from another galaxy and those who say they are unidentified flying aircraft meaning they are still classified projects. One thing i can tell you for certain is ufos were part of the area days of area 52 because the u 2 and oxcart were often mistaken for a ufo. I interview the people in charge of putting the kabosh on the reports and sometimes people who saw them, and what they were seeing was the oxcart, and they would see a shiny object going at a speed that wasnt humanly possible because it was an unknown speed flying in the 1960s. So the fbi would knock at the door and pay visit to people who reported these to let them know they didnt create anything strange and that created its own conspiracy because if the fbi shows up at your door and tells you you didnt see something you know you saw. That is not to completely disregard individuals who believe they have seen things in the sky that can not be explained. I just think they are different sides of the argument. Host all your books have been bestsellers. Does that surprise you . Guest someone who spent decades trying to get someone to read what i was writing, yes, that prizes me. It is the best kind of surprise. Host why did you give up on the Great American novel . Guest no one was bysing buying it. When i became a reporter, that changed things, because i accepted so much of writing is craft. It is just stay at it, keep at it, and ultimately you will find and narrate the story. Host a couple books are in the movie bode. Guest they all are. My new book, phenomena was just auctioned by Steven Spielburg and jason blum. You have the old guard, et and close encounters. Lets face it, spielburg build th this genera and then you have blums projects which are all about what makes you uncomfortable. And in dealing with phenomena, the idea of thebuttal between the skeptics and the supernaturalists makes people uncomfortable. They think one side and then talk to the other side and think another thing. We have to ultimately come to terms with our own belief set. But a lot of times it is a process. The amazing think about film and television is there is a gentle way in to many of these subjects and they spark an interest in the nonfiction world, i think. They work part in parcel. Host you said phenomena has been auctioned by two people. How is that able to happen by two people . Guest they team up and a like a great people. Operation paperclip is in development with brad Pitts Company which is called plan b and rat pack which is Brett Ratners company and they team up. And pentagons brain you have jj aberoom rams and the people working with star wars. And you have the woman who cowrote the terminator. Science fiction is super interesting to a lot of people but my favorite theme, the reaching of what can be known, and so much of Science Fiction winds up becoming the truth and in fact so many scientists, famous scientists, Nobel Laurettes tell me their ideas come from reading Science Fiction as a child. Host 1984 and George Orwell was one one of your favorite authors growing up. Guest i like Cautionary Tales because you can see what you want to avoid or hope to avoid. The last chapter i wrote about is the quest to create a synthetic brain and our visit to los alamos. Will Artificial Intelligence lead us or will it liberate us. It is that question. Whether or not we will attend the true machine we have yet to know. But the Defense Department is certainly moving in the direction of marrying antonymous weapons with drones. I see danger in that and i see the cautionary tale. Host marcia, union bring email, were you ever threatened because of the research you do for your books . Do you know if you have ever been under surveillance because of your books . I am just after the facts and i talk to scientists who worked on very secret, very classified military programs and they are saying and what tay cant say. That is where the risk is. I am grateful scientists agree to talk to me because it would perhaps be easier to say i cant. They cannot disclose classified material and that is a greater risk they take than i think i take as a reporter writing non narrative fiction. Host gene, good afternoon. Caller hi, i want to confirm if you have heard about the rumor running around at one Technology Company i worked for a long time and that is special forces, delta and seals, get a chip embedded for identification purposes like after the failed iranian hostage attempt . They got remains back and after that they decided they needed to put chips into the those guys so they can maybe identify remains easier . Host thank you, sir. Guest the chipping technology is very controversial. Yes, there is the chips and civilians do that as well. They are presented under the idea of warrior wellness and under the idea brainwounded soldiers can have a shchip in their brain and they can work on these programs to bring back cognition. This is a very slippery slope area and even the jason scientists who i interviewed advised the pentagon not to go in that direction for fear of and this is an exact quote it could lead to high quality brain control. When you have that cautionary tale idea or a warning from a group of scientists who have been advising the pentagon for decades and the pentagon choses to ignore that i think it is important to let the facts be done and the citizenry can decide if they think this is good idea, putting chip anywhere in peoples body. Host on the flipside, what if the russians and chineses are working on this and we dont want to be caught technologically surprised . Guest that is always the argument. You have to say who is pushing the science where and why. Darpa is always an option. Host paul, Annie Jacobson, is your guest and we have about 15 minutes left. Caller thank you very much for putting me on. I have a number of questions. The first question is bob lazar and i am sure you have discussed him but the interesting thing is by coincidence he was hungarian and apparently dr. Teller recommended that we work on the reverse engineering and i wonder if you discussed that or would like to discuss it. Item number two, i visited Roy Patterson air force base last year and of course, the roswel incident was the removal of debris to a special hanger and Patterson Air force base and from there Spirited Away to area 51. Unfortunately, i havent had the opportunity to read your books but i will because i am a neighbor. So that is another area. The third area that i am find just fascinating is that back in the 90s, an American Military general, a colonel, published a book he theorized and proposed the fact that reverse engineering was responsible were the Technological Breakthroughs that took place in the 50s and many of those breakthroughs were done by darpa and then dissiminated through the private sector host we will leave it at those three questions but quickly, do you believe the third question . Caller it is hard to disprove because the explosion, if you look at the development of human civilization, there are timelines when major discoveries are made. Aristotl aristotle, isaac newton but a huge concentration in a 30 decade period of explosive discoveries simply is statistically out of the norm we are looking at the discovery of the transistor and the use of silico silicone. They are so different than the dynamics in particular the aero dynamics host paul, thank you for that. I apologize. I think we got the gist. Caller many of these subjects with covered in area 51 from lockede, heller, lazar. These are all ideas if you think about going back to what we were talking about. Were just talking about, what what is possible in any age . The idea of strange things in the sky is something people cont cont contemplated is one of the things that go back the further. I looked at what people thought were the earliest ufos. Omens, rulers back in 600 bc would say who will win the war . Went to the oracle at del phi read what it was like to work with these. These are part and parcel to all subjects i investigate. I love the fact there are ideas that exist and we look at journalists and go into the eyewitness based on documentation and people who have laid the tracks down. The story is always evolving and transforming and changing but ultimately it is going in that direction of what we know about the past and how we can use that as we move forward in the fut e future. Technology is advancing at an astonishing rate and we and our ideas and brains are relatively the same. Host what about his point that all of a sudden we are getting into the sim discoveries . Guest many people talk about the same discoveries cropping up in the world at the same time. One of the themes i write about in phenomena that is new to my works, if you will, speaks to the readers question and your point. It has to do with this idea of where does inspiration come from . The eureka moment. I will tell a story about the great charles towns and hot he told me. Charles towns won the nobel prize in the 1960s for the laser. One of the most important technological interventions of the era. Civilian use, laser printer, eye surgery, so much more. The scientific skeptic go crazy on this idea. When you think about the idea i am about to tell you from charles town it puts it in perspective. I asked him to confirm with me a kind of story that is out there. That the idea of the laser came to him while he was sitting on a park bench and he said yes, that is right. He said that was his moment. So in his view and perspective, that moment was something that came to him from the super natural for towns. And this, i think, speaks to the callers question about where are these ideas coming from and some people, the sheep, will tell you that great moments are not limited to, you know, i came up with this idea myself sitting at my desk. There are three Nobel Lauretes i write about. And i think the whole level of higher intelligence, consciousness, that is touching upon that theory that there is a greater intelligence out there. I think that it is not i think it is unwise, for me anyways to dismiss this whole cloth and take the position of the goat and essentially ridicule it. I think the idea of being open to it is far more interesting and far more courageous. Host dick, troy, alabama. Caller cspan, thank you for the last two hours and 50 minutes. This has been captivaticaptivat. I have a question first. But i just have to say you sold more books because i am going to buy them tomorrow. What i would like to know, though, is you made this twice about where the wheels meet. The bouts between security and liberty. And liberty. Is an informed it is an informed public that you need. I want to know this and please dont consider this to be a mean question pause i dont mean for it to be. Just how much should we know about what is going on . Host we will get an answer in two seconds. Dick, will you tell us a little bit about yourself . Caller i am just i try to be a writer but not very good at it. I am not very wise, either. My knowledge is very shallow. I really couldnt i dont know even know if shallow would be the proper word is how ignorant i am about him talking. Host what kind of work did you do . Guest i taught students for a while but i have been a lot of or things, too. But this has been a most enjoyable show. I wish you would write a novel, ms. Jacobson. Host there you go. How much should we know . Guest another theme i am always writing about because when you see some of the programs declassified, and you realize what was at issue, what was at stake, there is very good reason in many instances to keep those programs classified so that the other side doesnt isnt aware of that. And then it remains a true defensive measure. There lies the conundrum of the industrial military complex and i think the callers question is brilliant because the military complex exists for the reason of National Security but if their goal is to speed up the revelation then you also have what one Department Official described to me as a selflicking ice cream cone. If you could have a great Weapon System that stayed classified and the other community knew about it and couldnt defend gets it and the goal was to keep the two powers in check then essentially you have an effective Weapon System. The minute that system becomes known like the f117. Then that becomes obsolete and creates an entire new vacuum, ie new business for the defense contractors to create a new Weapon System. It is brilliant and i think there is no easy answer. But the investigator in me is infinatel interested in pursuing those facts and presenting them to the public. Host this is an email from joe. Which one or two programs would you like to see released to the public tomorrow . Which one or two wake you up in a cold sweat . That is a great question. I dont know. I think the cold really and truly the unknowable programs with the most interesting and it never seizes to amaze me when you learn about a program that, you know, kneone knew about before. But if i had to say looking back, i think the weapons test that we did in space that speaks to the space race and there is talk with the Current Administration of rebooting the space race. I think that is dangerous for a number of reasons first and foremost because they are talking about a return to Nuclear Testing perhaps. That is frightening. If you look at the weapons test done in space you get a sense of how dangerous this all can be. Host lauren, ohio, please go ahead with your question or comment for Annie Jacobson. Caller this is mr. Jacobson and thanks for having me. I am 93 years old and my grandfathers first name was torvel jacobson. That was lee eriksons brother. So, i dont know if there is any relative or not but i thought i would bring it up. But the question i want to ask you is does the government still have that material picked up at roswell . Host Lauren Jacobson of ohio, 93 years young, thank you for watching. Guest you have the spirit of adventure in your blood. We dont know where the remains were. Host do we know if there were remains . Guest it depends on who you ask. I write about that in area 51. I think that is a mystery and maybe to your earlier caller can you imagine if roswell was declassified . Host Annie Jacobson is the author of four books first coming out in 2011, area 51 an uncensored history of americas Top Secret Military base. Operation paperclip the secret Intelligence Program that brought nazi scientists to america came out in 2014. The pentagons brain came out in 2015. And her most recent book is phenomena; the secret history of the u. S. Governments investigation into psychokinesis she tells us her next book has something do with the cia. Do you enjoy the book tour . Guest love it. Love getting out there talking to people who like to read. Reminds me of the image of Edgar Mitchells man on the moon reading. You think about this idea. The archetype of reading, of knowledge, i often say i have the best job in the world. I get to write books and listen to what readers think the experience of reading the book and how it influences them in their lives and their thinking and they become more of an alert and knowledgeable part of the citiz citizenry. Host lets hear from barbara in newark. Caller speaking about near death experiences and extra sense perception. I had a near death experience and i think the brain is more powerful than any computer. Also, have you heard of dark social . It is supposed to be something where on the internet people can read what you write on facebook or in any kind of blog or anything and they take it and they write it and claim it as their own and then when you go to verify your own writing you are being told you are plagaerizing yourself . Host what was your near death experience . Caller i fell on concrete, slipped and hit the back of my headon concrete and i had nothing to prevent my whole weight hitting on the back of my head and i was out for i dont know how long. When i got in the ambulance, i saw, and i dont know whether it was vertigo or what it was but it was like a jet speeded up rocketship speed, like in front of my eyes but it was going from left to right or right to left and it was like what would you call it . Like a slot machine going in front of my eyes. Host apologize we are almost out of time. Near death experiences. Have those been investigated . Guest yes, i write about this in phenomena because that is there people have a near death experience and come back from conviction with what they are going to pursue. It often has to do with consciousness. You know . What is the brain capable of . If you go somewhere else, come back, you certainly have a different perspective and i find that super interesting. Host medical Research Involved in a lot of thing the things you have looked at . Guest absolutely. Human physiology is where we are today with the esp program. Instead of the parapsychologist you have neurobiologist looking inside the brain, inside the body, and working to map the human brain. It is a remarkable concept particularly when you put the military in the mix because the military is working to enhance human functioning, enhance cognition and ultimately to weaponize these systems. There are civilian applications . Like all things there is dual use. Host for the last three hours, Annie Jacobson has been our guest on booktv. Thank you. Cspan where history unfolds daily. In 199, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. One reason i wanted to write the book is there is so much attention paid to the Opioid Epidemic in rule, upper and middle class white communities. The white aspect gets a lot of attention, almost exclusively. When the fact is we could go to east baltimore, harlem, and find people shooting up and using pills who are not white, lower middle class people. This is an epidemic that affects all income groups, races, ages and demographics and that is something that is largely looked past in the media. I think, in part, because it is easier for reporters to go. Most reporters are white. I am white. I am a reporter. Most reporters are white. I think white reporters feel more comfortable going to white neighborhoods to write about white drug addicts. That might be a controversial thing to say but that is my experience. I think if you saw more people of color journalists this would be represented more accurately in the press. I want to talk about an area in baltimore which is called oxy ally which is a small stretch on pennsylvania avenue but i spent a lot of time writing about the addicts there. This is where some of the loots drugs and many other drugs ended up. They call it oxy alley. On first glance it looks like any other blighted street in west baltimore filled with vacant homes, discarded liquor bottles and addicts stumbling out of the corners looking like zombies from Michael Jacksons thriller video. For nearly every vacant home, opioid addicts are getting high. Kie kie kiesha jones and her friend sit around talking about the quality of the drugs they are about to inject. Going to be real nice melting the oxycodone while her friend holds the spoon. Terry recently learned she is six weeks pregnant with her first child, she hasnt seen the babys father, her boyfriend, in five. I have got to make the most of it today because i cant be fooling around with pills no more. These bi are my send offs. Pill city gives names to the drugs. F16, holidays, yelly cake, mike tyson and black domino were the rage in april. Now it is beyonce and black ivries they are clamming for. They havent let us down yet who began abusing pain pills earlier this month. In other vacants along oxy ally there are people just like them. Shooting opiates from dust till dawn. Many getting pills from jimmy matters who was there before pill city came along. Jim anticipate jimmy matters was part of the battle between pill city and the drug dealers. The urban opiate addiction brought overdose and violence ravaging inner cities was an example here. Now, heres pj orourke on the 2016 election. Hi, everyone. Walk to the commonwealth club. Thank you for joining us this evening. This is a soldout program so we