Interviewed at length for that book, of course everything about area 51 is a puzzle inside of a puzzle. That is even debated. The actual origins, the originaa story of 51. Host so what was going on in 1951 . Guest the Nuclear Commission was doing testing in the middle of the desert. Come they wanted to keep what theyre doing secret and the cia was coming into existence with its programs. The two merged in this idea of if you have a secret base inside of a secret place you can do seeker program. So this is not a military operation necessarily . Area 51 has every organization you can imagine there over the decades. Military intelligence committee, intelligence commission, so everyone has their foot in area 51. Host what was operation paperclip . Guest the idea of my book i get from books ive written before. When i was finishing up area 51, i learned about some nazi scientists who are here working on programs. I found it fascinating, in particular a fellow by the name of. This is a very important airchnl force, Technical Intelligence person. When he retired in the 70s he was given the Defense Departments distinguished civilian service award. Thats incredibly high honor to get from the pentagon. Ii, h when i looked into the past and that during world war ii he had been one of the most important Technical Intelligence officers. He was given the highest award that you could be given. I thought, how does this happen . How do you work from one side and the work for the other side. That is why i wrote operation paperclip. That was a springboard into that narrative story. What host but what was operation paperclip . Was it to bring nazi scientists to the u. S. . Af guest yes, we brought as many as 1600 nazi scientists to create our Weapons Program. This is something that rings up a lot of moral questions. What i found most intriguing about writing that book, perhaps all my books is trying to maintain a neutral position and looking at both sides of thehear argument. Eople wi many people will tell you paperclip was imperative. We had to bring the nazi scientists to the United States in order to be back the russians. Others will tell you, how could we possibly have brought these nazis here, some of them were war criminals. There is dod weapons policy for you in a nutshell. Its extremely complicated and always two sides of thee hos argument. Ber thre host what is the pentagons brain . Guest that is book number three for me. That idea came from paperclip when my editor, i was finishing with paperclip and one of the most famous operation paperclip scientists created the Rocket Program and then really responsible for the Apollo Program. But he was a nazi scientist . He had been hitlers rocket builder. My editor at little brown asked me when i was finishing a paperclip, what went on with him in such and such a year. I looked into it and found out that this was in 1957. This new agency was emerging and it was called our path. Ec the advanced Research Project agency. We now know it as darpa. When they were beginning the organization it was who is the best scientist in america could lead the program. To lead all the americans in military technology and was called blue sky research. He was interviewed for the job but his caveat to take the job was that hell take it but i need to bring 12 of my colleagues from the Rocket Program. So that was a lie for the pentagon. They passed on brown being darpas first record. The way it came about is calling it the pentagons brain was realizing the Defense Department is looking it the great mine. Thats what they are concerned with. Who will lead us in technology f of the future. Host what are some things that have come out of darpa . Guest you know i name it. The most famous is the internet which was recycled the arpanet. Technologies like gps. Laser weapon. What t there is no and its what the pentagon produces. There is reason to say that Artificial Intelligence is aa darpa product, biotechnology. This is important to thinka about. Ce darpa is the most powerful and productive military Science Agency in the world. So few people know about it. That is pretty much why wrote the book in a nutshell. It was like, how can this agency be so significant, changing and shaping our world if you will. Yet, it is Public Perception is close to zero. Host psychokinesis. What is it . Guest book number four for me. I just published it last week. It is the idea, the book is called phenomena and its about the governments investigations into extraSensory Perception. En in psychokinesis. ExtraSensory Perception, gaining knowledge through meanings other than the five known senses. Psychokinesis. The alleged ability to move matter with the mine. These are very controversialal subjects and subjects that manyc scientists will tell you a pseudoscience. Why is interested is having come off of a hard science book, the pentagons brain, on the other side of the spectrum was whats called squishy science. The pentagon, the Defense Department, the Intelligence Community are interested in both of the subjects. Sote my. An host so taxpayer dollars are spent studying psychokinesis . Guest yes. All roads lead back to the nazis. I find. Certainly when im investigating and reporting on defensede department weaponspartme progra. Intelligence community and intelligence connection program. Esp psychokinesis leads back toh the nazis as well. Were talking decades of research in the area going on today. The original programs came from the idea that after the war we had an intelligence connect collection unit. It began, in the end when the war was still going on. We sent our finest scientist to try and capture nazi technology. We did. This is the link between all of my books. So, one of the documents we found that links up to the book phenomena was part of the Science Organization called [inaudible] they were investigating extrasensory psychokinesis. The documents became interestede too many people in the military community. Guess who got the other half . The russians. Anything that we knew they had as well we were worried about who would win the race. That is how the psychic arms race began. Same way over and the hard Science Department you had the rocket arms race. That idea of getting man into space began with the captured nazi documents, dts and literar scientists. Was your career to be a historian . Not at all. Fate and circumstance intervene in ones own life. That is why its such an interesting concept for me to write about. About how circumstance has a role in the past and the path that one is on. I wanted to be a novelist when i was younger. I went away to boarding school with a typewriter when i was 15. I was going to be the Great American novel us. Decades past and that was not a the case. One of my mentors said to me, stop making things up. Pursue the truth. It is the truth of matters. She also pointed out that ahead difficulty following direction. And that if i worked with an editor at a newspaper or magazine, i would learn how too follow direction. That is exactly what i did. It was extraordinary helpful. I tell anyone who is struggled with writing 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 whatsther p important and send you another paths and suggest to interview different people, that becomes a powerful journey. When you bring other great minds into the mix. Then you wind up where youre headed. How did you get started on area 51. Guest that was eight and circumstance. I think luck comes into play. It was interesting writing the book on extraSensory Perceptiona and psychokinesis. A lot of the scientists to lean toward the supernatural talk about love. They talk about coincidence and they say these are these fall into the category of extraSensory Perception. Its a squishy science concept to think about. But i like thinking about it because of the question you brought up. This one get a lucky break . You could say fortune favors the prepared mind. If youre always reading and writing and thinking and working as subjects interesting to you then circumstance intervenes and youre on your way. Specifically with area 51 i was at a dinner party. I was seated next to a gentleman who i had known for eight or nine years. He was a distant family member. A always under the impression thaw he was an aircraft designer because i knew he worked for lockey. He leaned over to me and he said, a boy, have i got an interesting story for you. Te at the time i was reporting onhi terrorism. He said the cia just declassified my lifes work. I invented stealth technologyd e was the physicist to lead the team. Macros back to an eisenhower was president. This is a remarkable league for a reporter to get. I went to the cia and low and behold, they had just declassified this Aircraft Carrier called oxcart. That took place at area 51. It then i began to work with lovick talking to them about his roleie in this incredible aircraft. I learned very quickly that there is a back story to thisbao back story. There is a lot of tangents whoil are super interesting. S that is how i got the idea of that book. Went to the larger public to become aware of very 51 . Guest thats an interesting question in terms of u. S. National security. When you think of a powerful important site that area 51 was, the fact that it remained almost unknown to the generalal population until the earlylyearl 1990s is astonishing. Talk about being able to keep a secret, make the analogy in the book about the Manhattan Project, same idea. Vice president harry truman did not know about. Or congress. Nt guest i think secret keeping was very interesting but to your question to your question aboutf adam lazar, he squeaked this news out which landed on the edge of conspiracy. And then area 51 became known. I think that is the origins of e an extraordinary amount of Conspiracy Theory that grew outi of that basin still exists. Still things going on there now. Host who was robert lazar . Guest he was an interesting engineer. He was at the basin saw thingsbu that he believed. Host he was working there . Guest yes. Although people will tell you never work there. The myths inside the puzzles in the conundrums. But, he stood by his position that he set sans alien. And then you get into these realms of propaganda and did they trust someone up and make them look like an alien. This idea of mythology and misinformation and disinformation is part and partial and really to all of the books that i have written. The subjects are conducive of that. You talk about signing an oath if you are working at area 51. Is a called area 51 by people who work there as well or is that. Yes, no. Originally when i was interviewing the scientist who work there they would call it the ranch. There were codenames for it. And of course was fascinating is the actual word, area 51 was classified when i was writing the book. It has since been declassified because president obama referred to it publicly. Documents we when i was looking at the documents earlier you had readda along on their be a small word redacted like blocked over. If you looked up to the light thats area 51. Out of Something Like 7000 pages of documents that i reviewed i found two places where someone forgot to block out area 51. Se it was an aha moment. Appene host lazar and las vegas television, what happened . He went on tv and made thiss claim and said there is alien Tl Technology and an alien out there. People have been fascinated with ufos for the millennia. This was like setting up a match and people, the story built. I think that has since the, great point of condemning is contention and why area 51 is on the lockdown issue. What kind of cooperation did you get from various Government Agencies that you worked with on this . Or try to work with. Every book is different. Every book is different. There is a dance that is done with journalists because remember, the basic job of the journalist is to inform the public. In spirit youre not supposed to have an opinion. So, one would think you would want to work with transparent elements of a government to also make things no. I find in my experience that the pr office of these agencies they only want to present a certain message. That is a message not a fact. So where i do most of my reporting is an interviewing scientist who are retired and work on significant programs for these agencies. They are acutely aware of what they can speak of and what they cannot because it stillill cl classified. Because i write about cold war programs, things that were incredibly interesting and involved extraordinary measures decades ago, everyone wanted too know about them them but cannot. When they become declassified the public moves on. I find that by tracking down the scientist, they are willing and happy to share their stories about the incredible programs. People have lost interest. Its the idea that its important to know the past to safeguard the future. Thats the greatest joy with working with defense scientist who are dedicated patriots and believe in what they did. E also as they get older willing to share the pitfalls in the failures. In the press office of any given military does not want to talk about failure. I th thats a danger in that. Its not to ridicule a failure, but rather to demonstrate that failure as part of success. That we must be very careful without trying to cover up failures. How much of what goes on in area 51 is still classified . Host or dont you know . Guest sometimes i wrote the book on area 51, but if you imagine an iceberg and how much of the iceberg you see and how much is below the surface, im guessing, but if you planted a flag at the top of the iceberg, thats probably what i reported in a 450 page book. What has gone on and what continues to go on boggles the mind. We could talk about Tunnel Technology for three more hoursl when i think of whats going on an area 51 there tunnel systems at the base. Cant its a great mystery. I cant wait to write area 52. Host have you become theile expert on foia request . Guest i write so many foia request and they often come in the mail with a by ten envelopes. They send the corner an essay or dod. Or caa. Their thin envelopes because that means you open up one sheet of paper and says the responses sorry we couldnt findndevery information. Every now and then, you get a bigger envelope and that was a great moment of joy. And thats what happened with phenomenon. I came home one day and theres a thick manila packet from the Central Intelligence agency. A foia request have been granted and there is almost a thousand pages of documents. The on these espn psychokinesis programs and that became the basis of phenomenon. Thats where i learned about the apollo astronaut, ed mitchell was going through esp tests going to the moon. The informatione was priceless. Host must go to phenomenon them. You visited Edgar Mitchell and first of all, tell us who he was. You visited him in his last part of life. Guest the way i got the idea to write phenomena was researching pentagon spring. I was looking at the apollo image library. So much of darpa has to do with space. It was the launching point of the organization. I found this image and it showed an astronaut standing on the moon reading a document. I thought, oh my god this is incredible image. You have advanced science, space travel and proto technology, writing, reading, and this one image. I had to know what that astronaut was reading on the moon. First i found out it was Edgar Mitchell of apollo for teen. The six man to step on theren moon. Guest so i went to interview him and i asked him what he was reading on the moon. And he said he was reading a map. It gets even better. A man on the moon reading a map of the moon. Why was he reading the map . Because he was lost. That to me is a brilliant, beautiful concept. Its so human that speaks to what youre talking about. Failures. How do you define failure . You have a Program Failure but then you have individual failu failure. That often leads to people being lost or feeling like they areana lost. Because i write narrative non fiction and its characterbased i care about the people i write about. I want to hear their story. And how it becomes a metaphorw for the bigger story. With mitchell, when he told me the story been lost on the moon its remarkable. What he said is that some of the apollo 14 mission, that comes after apollo 13, right, the failed moon mission. O if so much pressure on them to perform. The geologists wanted them to go to cohen crater and pull outd samples, rock samples and believed these rock samples could reveal earths origins and the moon. What a concept. You can have much more pressure on you. So that was their mission. They fly 240,000 miles to get to the moon. Mitchell was the pilot, he lands within 87 feet of the target. Itt and then they get lost, locally. Trying to find cohen crater. It doesnt get more human. When they found out there are lost in it speaks to many issues of perspective, where do you think you are versus where areeo you really in that environment they became confused and told nasa they could read all these transcripts, were lost we thinke were here there nasas trying to help them. Sa nasa give them 30 more minuteses and they cannot find their way to the crater. They were told to go home. So, hearing from mitchell about this disappointment of going all the way there and missing what turned out to be the target by about a thousand feet, its amazing. He shared with me how disappointed he felt on the trip home from the moon. But looking at one of the five windows of the spacecraft he had what he said was an epiphany. He looked out into him he realized that man was more than he previously thought. He became fascinated in that moment with the idea of consciousness and what is ma