Joe Rogan Experience #2372 - Garry Nolan

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. >> The Joe Rogan Experience. >> Train by day. Joe Rogan podcast by. night. All day. >> Derek, very nice to meet you, sir. >> Nice to meet you as well. >> Thank you for doing this. I really. appreciate it. Um, tell everybody what. you do. Tell everybody what your. official position is. You you're a. professor at the School of Medicine at. Stamford. What do you do? So my day job. is in cancer research and cancer biology.

mostly immunology and cancer. Much of. what my laboratory does is not so much. the biology of cancer but the developing. instruments that create the data that. allow us to analyze the complexities of. how the immune system interfaces with. tumors and how tumors basically reenable. uh the immune system to help the cancer. itself. So the problem's been we don't. have the ability to collect enough data. or not until recently to collect and.

understand what all of that means. So. we've been kind of poking in the dark. for decades. And so probably for the. last 20 years I've developed a number of. instruments and turned them into. companies that allow everybody to access. a level of information they couldn't get. before. So. explain that the the immune system. allows the tumors. So what happens is that there's sort of. a there's a dance between uh the. mutations that initiate a tumor and then.

uh sort of an evolution of how the tumor. eventually learns how to trick the. immune system to not recognize it. So we. have all kinds of intern I mean. literally every day uh every person. you'll develop five cancer like objects. inside of your body but the immune. system uh and your body has a way of. shutting it down very quickly. But with. enough time and with enough variation, tumors will eventually evolve in a way.

that trick the immune system not only. into not recognize them, but in fact to. help them and feed them in a way to. create an inflammatory environment that. actually then the tumor uses to. propagate its own cell division and then. metastasis. >> So it's a normal function of natural. human biology to create tumors. It's not so much a normal function. It's. a byproduct of what evolution is. That. when the genes mutate when a cell. divides or if you go out and you know.

stand in the in the sun uh too much for. instance, you get skin cancers because. you're getting ionizing radiation that's. changing the DNA making a mutation. And. some of those random mutations will. initiate a cancer. So for instance, I. have um a mutation called MIDF 318K. It's uh a mutation that I was born with. It didn't wasn't in my family. And it. causes both melanoma and kidney cancer, which I've had both. I've had a dozen uh. melanomas alone. Um you know, we didn't.

find that out until a couple of years. ago, but I've been following it over the. years and we basically figured out, okay, it's going to have to be this. So. we had my se my genome sequenced but. there's that's just one of hundreds of. different kinds of mutations that can. occur that are on a path towards. creating a cancer but the cancer can't. survive if the immune system recognizes. it. So eventually what happens is. there's this dant that is reached. between the immune system and the cancer.

where the immune system basically. ignores the cancer. So Jim Allison here. in Houston uh won the Nobel Prize back. in 2018. uh for understanding one of these. turnoff signals that the immune system. you that the cancer is used to turn off. the immune system and that by showing he. could block it. His wife Pam Chararma. ran a bunch of clinical trials at MD. Anderson that showed in fact that this. could actually turn a 5% survival.

disease in melanoma to a 50% survival. And that then created the whole. amunotherapy field that the world is uh. taking advantage of today. >> Wow. So, so what is what is cancer actually. doing? Like how how did it how do tumors. develop this ability to trick the immune. system? >> Is this something that other animals. have? >> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. >> So it's a constant. >> it's a constant battle. So, so, so for. instance, there there are proteins on.

your cell surface, and we'll get too. imunologically deep about it. Uh, they're called major hystocompatibility. complex proteins. So, for instance, if I. were to try to just randomly do a a. tissue transplant from me to you, it's. very likely that it would be rejected. And it's because of those MHC proteins. that it's rejected. What's happening is. that your cells are presenting your. internal cell biology to the immune. system and it's saying okay you're. you're a friend not a foe. So when.

cancer usually initiates there are. disruptions that happen and proteins are. made incorrectly etc. And so what these. MHC proteins are doing in some cases is. they're presenting the internal damage. to the body and the body saying oh. there's something wrong with this cell. We better wipe it out. we kill it. These. same proteins are what the immune system. uses for instance to go after viruses. So when you get a virus infection inside. of the cell, the body has a way of. chopping those proteins up inside of the.

cell, presenting it via MHC, and then. the immune system attacks it. So what. one of the first things that actually. tumors do is they learn to turn off the. MHC proteins inside of themselves. So. the ability to show that I'm damaged is. shut down. And so the immune system. doesn't go on full alert for that. But. then there are other mutations like. divide when you're not supposed to uh. you know avoid this kind of induced cell. death called apoptosis. uh and not others. And so it cancer.

doesn't just like start and then the. next day you've got it. It's a. progression of events. You have these. precancerous lesions. You have like a. benign tumor which eventually becomes a. metastatic tumor. Um and and so the but. the immune system is key at every stage. of the development because if you can. reactivate the immune system in just the. right way then you can prevent the. cancer from basically uh spreading or.

from metastasizing or from killing you. essentially. Is there a potential for. given the understanding of this, is. there a potential for using this for. organ transplant patients where locally. would stop recognizing this as a. foreign. >> That's exactly what that's exactly what. is done. In fact, you um. >> when you get a tissue transplant or an. organ transplant, you're suppressing the. immune system. The problem with that.

suppression is that you then put. yourself at risk of cancer because what. you're doing is you're turning off the. immune system's ability to to combat and. go after a cancer the moment it forms. So most people who are under immune. suppression are at risk both of let's. say virus infections, bacterial. infections, but also further cancers. >> So would the the potential be to turn. that off locally? So you could turn that. off to the on the specific organ? That. would be a great thing to do if we.

could. Right now, the only things that. we have are systemic. So, yeah, I mean, for instance, if you could deliver to. the organ that you're transplanting. anti-immunos, you know, basically. imunosuppressives locally, that would be. great. We don't have that yet, but that. would be via a form of gene therapy. But. the problem would that be that if you. like let's say you had a lung. transplant, if you had a lung infection, it would be catastrophic. >> You want to come work in my lab? >> You're you're you're accepted as a.

graduate student in the Stanford. Department of Pathology. >> Well, that was easy. >> Yeah. I have a few friends that have had organ. transplants and it's, >> you know, it's very disturbing knowing. that they're so vulnerable to any kind. of infection because of these. medications that they have to take in. order for their body to accept the. transplant. One of the problems is that. there are literally hundreds of. different types of immune cells. And you. know really until recently and frankly. until um a technology my lab developed.

about over a dozen years ago we couldn't. look at all of the immune cell types all. at once in a single picture. Um so I. came from a laboratory Lenin Lee. Herszenberg when I was a grad student at. Stanford and they had developed an. instrument called a fluoresence. activated cell sorter and that allowed. you to look at three proteins at a time. and if you could know ahead of time what. the cell types were that expressed the. proteins that you're interested in. You. could look at just those three cell. types. Then I came up with a way to look.

at you know 50 or 60 proteins at a time. sort of stepping up what they had. already taught me how to do. Uh and then. suddenly that gave us the ability to. look at nearly every cell type uh in the. in the body uh in immune cell types and. then that gave us the let's say the raw. data to build math mathematical models. that we could do better predictions of. what outcomes would be. >> and how is that like how are you what. are you applying in in terms of like. real world scenarios? How are you.

applying this? Well, so for instance, um. there's a kind of leukemia called AML, acute myogynous leukemia. It starts in. the bone marrow. Uh and it is a. distorted uh version of a myoid cell. type. It starts as a as a stem cell and. that stem cell goes down a number of. different paths and depending upon the. person the disease is sufficiently. different that it might follow a. slightly different path towards what.

becomes the disease itself. And so being. able to trace the path and to know which. steps along the way that it takes to. become what becomes then the metastatic. uh lymph uh leukemia um could only be. accomplished by having enough markers. that allowed us to trace everybody along. the path. It's kind of like if I wanted. to follow you from who you are as an egg. through development through to who you. are today and I had snapshots every.

month. I need different markers to measure what. you are as an egg versus what you are as. a baby versus what you are as an adult. And so each of those different markers. in my world would be different proteins. that tell me something about an adult. leukemia versus a baby leukemia. And. then we use something called pseudo. time, which is a mathematical concept. that allows us to stitch together those. photographs. I could take a random box.

of photos of you from an egg to who you. are today. And I could just by hand put. together the most likely path and. sequence of what you were from the. earliest to the latest. But we needed. the data and we needed the means and the. instruments to collect that information. so that then the math could come to. play. That's such a fascinating thing. about human beings is the biological. variability is that everybody is so. we're so the same. >> Two lungs, a heart, but so different in.

how our body reacts to things and what. what happens to us and environmental. factors, diet, stress, all all sorts of. different factors. And you're kind of. piecing together this puzzle, >> right, >> of all these things. >> And but what you're doing is you you. still have to pay homage to the fact. that those differences exist. And so. while you know the my cancer might be. the same class of let's say melanoma as.

another person's, the complexity of what allowed that. cancer to become are so different that. the drugs that would work for me might. not work for another person. M. >> and so that's what basically requires us. to personalize the medications in a way. that gives the right uh drug to the. right person. So I've started probably. half a dozen companies and sold them uh. places like Ro etc. My most recent. company we sold to 10x genomics which.

enabled us enables them now uh because. of a patent I created back in 2011 to. scale up the amount of information that. we can collect at a time that then when. layered on top of what for instance 10x. genomics already did which is doing. what's called single cell genomic uh. analysis we could scale that up a. 100fold to get a 100fold amount the. information but the problem with that is. that I can collect all that data and.

make uh an analysis of a cancer for you. but it might be a little bit different. than another person. So what we have to. do then is develop techniques that allow. us to narrow in on what the differences. might be so that when I develop a drug. for person X, it works for person X and. not for person Y, right? The right way. >> So there's a lot of personalization in. medicine that is required. um the the. diversity that makes humanity great and.

that makes humanity able to survive in. the face of so many challenges is that. there are individual differences that. one person might survive and another. won't. Um it's the same thing with. cancers and it's the same thing with. drugs. I mean the you know for instance. with certain drugs it one of the first. things I learned in pharmarmacology when. I was you know way back in the day is. that there's always a benefit uh to. damage ratio that you're having to deal.

with that a drug has a positive outcome. but there are side effects and so as. scientists or as clinicians we make a. choice based on the statistics who will. benefit the most and will it benefit the. most but by the way there's all these. side effects that might affect you. Uh. and um you know overall globally 60% of. people will survive but since I don't. know anything more about your specific. disease I am by law required to give you.

the 60% drug. >> until I know or can distinguish that. your disease is a different subclass. than the 60%. And that's in fact a lot. of what um pharmaceutical companies are. doing is they're trying to marry a. diagnostic to the disease itself, the. disease subtype itself. So that if you. can show that 90% of the people uh of. this kind of subclass will survive, you. have to by law choose that diagnostic to.

make sure that the person doesn't have. the subclass before you give them the. 60% drug. Does that make sense? >> Yes. Yeah, it does. Um the narrative has. always been over the you know last few. decades stay out of the sun. >> But recently people have started saying. no it's actually you need to become. accustomed to the sun and the real issue. is people using sunscreen all the time. and then going out and getting burned. Obviously your situation is very. different because you you have a.

specific gene. >> and I'm Irish. >> Yeah. So that's that's the problem, right? the genes of the people that. lived in cloudy ass places for hundreds. of thousands of years. >> And my mother, when we were kids, I. mean, I'm 64 years old, so when I was a. kid, you know, we'd go to the beach in. Connecticut and they'd smother me in in, you know, uh um coconut oil. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Baby oil. When I was a. kid, everybody had baby oil and. everybody got barbecued. >> Yeah. Plus, I worked in the, you know, in the fields as a kid for, you know,

farm farm labor. >> And that's not good. >> That wasn't good. the burning the that's. the real the damage to the skin and then. it manifests itself as cancer far later. in life. Right. Right. There's all these. subtle let's call them uh. smoldering mutations that are waiting. for a second or a third hit to occur. >> Um or for you know instance you get old. enough so that your immune system is. kind of going wonky and it no longer is. able to take care of something that 20. years ago it would have been able to. heal.

>> right. >> heal perfectly well. >> That makes sense. So is there any. this this narrative that you need to be. in the sun more and that just don't get. burned? Is that reality? >> Well, it depends on who I mean for. someone like me. No, but there are. positives obviously for the sun. I mean. I mean vitamin D as an example, but. they're also you know resetting your. clock in the morning rather than taking. melatonin at night. go and just, you. know, in a bright use use use glass to.

shield out the ultraviolet and get some. bright light. It's the UV that's the. danger. It's not light. >> So for you, you don't you don't ever. just go sit in the sun. >> Not anymore. No, but I was. >> because of the melanoma. >> Cuz I was an idiot when I was a kid. I. mean, I would go use tanning tanning. beds cuz I thought I wanted to look, you. know, tan, right? >> And I did tan back then, but. >> you know, obviously can't anymore. >> Yeah. Yeah. You don't really see those. anymore, do you? >> No, you do. >> Maybe in like Seattle.

>> Some people do. Yeah. There's, you know, I mean, I I think there's obviously. there's a benefit to light. I mean, I'm. not saying don't go out and do it. And. if And. >> you know, I I think as well there'll. come a day and I was just talking with. some friends of mine at dinner last. night is, you know, maybe with things. like crisper, uh, I could rub a crisper. ointment on my body. It would fix the. single point mutation in my skin and. then I could enjoy the sun again. >> Is that really potentially?

>> Oh yeah. >> I think Oh yeah. No, I think we're. >> How far away are we? >> I think honestly I mean people always. say five years is sort of like this. horizon but no I really I mean I know. people who are already developing. systems for delivering genes you know. RNA to sell. I know that's a dirty word. in some uh but there are formulations of. RNA that probably won't be as. problematic as some of the things that. maybe uh the COVID vaccine might have. done, >> right? Yeah. RNA right now you say and. people clench. >> they Yes. Exactly. Yeah. But I mean your.

your your cells are full of RNA. >> So I mean you can't get away from the. fact that your cells are full of RNA. >> It's just the messenger RNA. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But it's also the means by which they. delivered it, >> right? I mean the the means by which it. was delivered was a formulation of a. nucleotide that by itself uh was meant. to be something called an adgiant. Uh an. adgivant is something which activates. the immune system you want. I mean when. you get a vaccination you are.

co-injected with something that. hyperactivates the immune system to say. come hither. >> right. >> um and uh and most of the pain that you. get from an injection is not the vaccine. itself it's the adgivant. >> Right. This episode is brought to you by. OnX Hunt. Hunters, listen up. Millions. of hunters use the OnX Hunt app. And. here's why. It turns your phone into a. GPS that works anywhere, even without. cell phone service. You'll see exactly. where you are, every property line, and. who owns the land. You can connect your.

cellular trail cams, drop custom way. points, dial in the wind, and a whole. lot more. Whether you're chasing elk on. public, finding the back corners of your. deer lease, or knocking on doors for. permission, OnX Hunt gives you the. knowledge and confidence to make every. hunt more successful. No more. second-guing boundaries, wasting. daylight, or wondering what's over the. next ridge. You'll know every single. step. The best hunters aren't lucky, they're prepared. This is how you get.

there. So, before your next hunt, get. OnX Hunt. Download it today and use the. code JRE for 20% off your membership at. onxhunt.com. And so the problem with this was that it. it turned your whole body into like a a. spike protein factory. >> Yeah. Well, at least locally. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. No, I've read some of the some of. the work. >> But not always locally, right? Because. didn't some they didn't a lot of they. didn't aspirate with a lot of people. >> Yeah.

>> Yeah. >> There there were. >> I don't think they aspirated with. anybody. they didn't with the president. on TV, >> but if you if you get infected by a. virus, it's all over your whole body. anyway. So, it's whether the spike. protein itself was problematic. And um. so you know I I I know I'll annoy. somebody one side or the other by saying. anything around this area and I'm not. here to cause any controversy. But um. you know your immune system works but if. you can trick your immune system into.

getting ahead of the game then that's a. good thing. The question is back to this. cost benefit ratio. Is the benefit to. the larger statistical population worth. it knowing that some people are going to. be hurt by it or not? Uh that's the. question. So for instance, you know, back to cancer and vaccines, there's a. number of cancer vaccines that are. coming down the pike. >> that for people like me would be I mean.

given that I get something chopped off. of me four times a year. >> Really? >> Oh yeah, you should see me. I look like. I've been in a war zone. Um, you know, some people say, "Oh, that's hot.". >> And that's the only They say that's hot. >> Wow. >> Someone's into cutters. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. >> Um, so that's so fascinating. But is. there another way that could potentially. deal with those things other than. cutting them off or is that the only way. to remove it from your system? >> Right now, um, it has to be cut off. So.

the the issue is that once those the. melanoma once these lesions are on your. on your skin they will expand. >> Yes. Luckily most of mine are what are. called have been called surface. spreading. Although one of mine was. what's called a nodal which basically. dives right in and believe it or not my. dog found it and was sniffing at it on. my arm. >> really. >> and like started like scratching at it. and it stopped bleeding. You I'll show. you the scar. >> What kind of dog? >> He well this was 15 years ago. He was a. Pomeranian, but you know, you can see.

the scar there. >> Oh, that's crazy. >> Um, and uh, it wouldn't stop bleeding. And so, you know, I went in and had it. looked at and they said another week and. it would have metastasized. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> Yeah, he has. >> What a great dog. >> He was great. Yeah, he was great. But, um, you know, I there are um, so for. instance, if you can catch most of these. cancers early, then that's what's. important. So I think probably one of. the most important let's say changes to. our medical system that could be.

initiated would be frankly the use of. things like MRI not CT scans because CT. scans are known to cause cancer. >> which is so crazy. Yeah. >> Like when did we figure that out? Uh I. mean they there was like a big study. just published recently that said here's. what happens to people once CT scans. were. >> implemented and you see this sudden. spike. >> in the I mean again it's this. costbenefit ratio if you didn't have it. certain people wouldn't have you know.

wouldn't know that they have a giant. tumor in there right I mean so for. instance I had um when I had kidney. cancer I was actually at a restaurant. with friends doing a business deal. actually and I went to bathroom and it. was blood. And I said, "Okay, we got to. go to the, you know, we got to go to. the, you know, to the emergency room. like now." And then they did a CT scan. and they see this the brachial tree. around my kidney was just a big diffuse. mess and they came in and said, "You've. got you've got cancer.". >> Did you have to have your kidney. removed? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was um but you.

know, it's okay. I'm alive. >> It's nice to have two of them. >> Yes. Exactly. um I'm alive but uh you know it is is. this early detection is important I mean. I was lucky that it hadn't metastasized. yet um it's called it was called clear. cell renal cell carcinoma um but you. know so. surveying the body and these companies. that are out there right now which do it. I think are really important because.

even if you are young and you have no. suspicion you're going to have cancer. Having that baseline against which you. can compare later changes is important. because I could do for instance a CT. scan or an MRI of you and I'd find lots. of little anomalies and they're. generally in the field called phantomas. there are these objects that. may be worrisome, but we won't know that. they're worrisome and certainly not. going to do a biopsy of them and, you.

know, poke a needle into your chest to. pick piece of it. Um, but if I come back. 6 months and it's changed, then maybe. it's something we need to go after, you. know, more seriously. So getting those. kinds of regular scans I think is. probably one of the more um important. things that could be done but not by a. CT scan. >> which is crazy because we were doing. them for so long. Did they they still do. CT scans though because it's necessary. only for certain things.

>> right which is. letting people know this might cause. cancer is just like yikes. >> Yeah. But maybe for instance there'd be. a way um to treat someone with. a drug ahead of time that would minimize. the effect of the CT scan. >> Ah. >> right. So that you know because the CT. scans are generally causing oxidative. damage and so if you could provide a. local antioxidant and I'm not saying. that something like this exists. That's. a bit of a naive um statement, but if.

you could do that locally to the area. that's being imaged or to the whole. body, then maybe CT scans could be. lessened in their problematic outcomes. >> I would say innovative and hopeful that. would naive. >> Yeah. >> I don't think it's naive because you're. recognizing the issue, >> right? Thank you. >> Um so how well this was also a problem. with X-rays, right? like X-ray. technicians. Like I I've seen some of. those images of people's hands because. the technician used to have to use their.

own hand to check to make sure that the. X-ray was functional and then over the. years they go, "Hey, what the [ __ ] is. wrong with my hand?" And then they. realize, "Oh boy.". >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Well, it's interesting because what's. what's happening with X-rays or CT scans. is a fast forward of the kind of random. damage that causes cancer in the first. place. And so because it's random, um, but let me kind of go back a little bit. as to why does cancer happen in the. first place. So let's go way back in. evolution to the first time that that.

there were single cells versus the first. time that two cells met each other and. said it was better to uh to join forces. and cooperate rather than to divide at. each other's expense. So in the process. of that happening, those two cells came. together or three or four cells. They. basically said together we're better. than alone. But there were actually. social compacts and contracts that at. the genetic level were being formed. between all of these cells. And so as. things got more and more complex uh more. and more complex contracts were formed.

to the point at which what could happen. is that any one of the breaking of a. complex contract could actually then. initiate a cascade that becomes cancer. So rather than we thinking of um cancer. as being a forward progression in. evolution, it's actually another way to. think about it is that it's a devolution. back to the core fire of the desire to. divide. >> And so by breaking the contract by b by. breaking the controls on the system.

cancer is allowed to. blossom. So the problem is that every. tissue type, whether you're lung or. brain or whatever, has a whole different. ecosystem of contracts that have been. formed. And so there's no. onesizefits-all. drug that will kill off all cancers. because the contracts are different. >> It's not like you can bring in a lawyer. and fix, you know, agricultural. contracts versus maritime or whatever.

Yeah. >> So that's the, you know, you have to. have a flexible enough mindset because. if you get stuck in this, it's a forward. evolution as opposed to that it's a. breaking of contracts, you might miss. out on an opportunity for uh how to. develop a dream a a um a therapy or a. drug that would help people. One of the things um that I I wanted to. ask you on I don't even know if you know. anything about this but is there a. connection between IVF.

and the amount of because you have to. take some pretty extreme hormones. There's a lot of stuff that women have. to take. Is there a connection between. that and hormonal related. >> tumors? I honestly don't know. So I. don't want to appine and half my. colleagues send me emails tomorrow. >> scolding me. Okay, good. Well, I'm glad. you answered that way. I I I was told by. someone who I really trust that there is. and then we tried to Google it and it. said there's not, but that's not.

surprising. Probably there hasn't been. the right kind of study yet. And if. there is not, there should be. I mean, certainly any hormonal imbalance is not. a good thing. I mean you imbalance the. metabolism of the system and you can. >> I mean so for instance back to my. specific disease. >> uh with midf I there's all kinds of. things like in an an acetyl. anacetylcyine. >> betane all these other drugs that are. out there for longevity well if I look.

into the metabolism of what my cancer is. every single one of those is a is a. disaster for me. >> accelerates. >> yeah not good. >> not. So because there's all these feedback. mechanisms I mean you know people often. say you know scientists are not. religious. Um, there's nothing that inspires more more. awe in me than knowing the complexity of. the cell and knowing the complexity of. life, right?

>> And seeing all this feedback and. mechanism and knowing that underneath. that is a universe with particles, etc. that enabled something like us to exist. I just sit in awe of that. >> Well, yeah, it's awe inspiring for sure. I mean, anybody who doesn't think it is. is not paying attention or they're. purposely being ignorant, >> right? >> Yeah. We get a lot of that, though. >> Oh, yeah. Well, that's okay. You know, teachers are here to hopefully teach and. not preach. >> Hopefully. Yeah. Um, because of your.

specific type of cancer and your. situation, like, do you have to like. very closely monitor your diet? >> Um, I probably shouldn't eat as much. meat as I do. >> Meat? Yeah. Um, >> why meat? Well, because you know fats. and a lot of them the fats dissolve a. fair number of toxins. Um, you know, it's it's not necessarily a good thing. I mean, that's been relatively well. shown that too much meat as opposed to. I'm not advocating vegetarianism. I.

think there's a there's a happy medium. I mean, we grew up in an environment. where we had both. I mean, we're. omnivores. Mhm. >> Uh and we succeeded, I think, because. we're omnivores, uh as a society, as a. you know, as a civilization. So, um but. you know, charred meat for. >> That's the issue, though, isn't it? Isn't it burnt? >> Yeah. I mean, it's carcinogens. I mean, you know, you're making all kinds of. It's a It's a witch's brew of nastiness. >> Uh that tastes good. But you know, the. reason why it tastes good is because.

the humans who survived learned to use. fire to kill off the bacteria in rotten. meat. And so the flavor of that probably. was engineered into our evolution. Uh. but again, it's a cost benefit. >> But didn't the cooking of it also allow. us to absorb more protein? >> Um I'm not sure about that. >> I believe so. Okay, that could be. >> I believe that's the case that that. cooking meat actually allows it to be.

more easily absorbed by the body. >> Could be broken down more readily, but. but certainly it kills bacteria. So, you. know, day old or three-day old deer, >> right? >> You know, that you just bear or not. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, you know, I mean, yeah, we're. not vultures that seem to have digestive. systems that can handle all of that. >> Mhm. Um, so you should eat less meat. What? What else do you avoid? Sugar, which seems to be a real problem with. cancer. >> Yeah, I avoid Yeah, I avoid too much.

sugar. Yeah. Thanks for this, by the. way. >> Is that sugar free? >> No, but that one's not. Oh, we have. sugar-free ones. >> No, cuz the sugar-free ones have stuff. in them that are just as bad. Xylitol. and all the other. >> What about Zia? >> Yeah, that would be great. >> Stevia for you? >> I don't think so. I haven't seen. anything on that. But, you know, I mean, look, like I said, I'm 64. It's way too. late. And every time that let's say. scientists make some grand prediction of. what's good or bad, 5 years later we. find and update. >> what it should have been. I mean I often.

say this and this is this is true. >> The goal of science or scientists is to. be. >> right today, even wrong today, but. righter tomorrow because we're always. backing what the results are and what. they mean in the context of a bigger. picture. I like how you say good science. because that's part of the problem is. that ego gets attached to ideas that. have already been discussed and. published, >> right? >> And then people are very reluctant to. accept new evidence that's contrary to.

that. >> Yeah. I mean, as always, as I often say, you know, in the context of something I. know we'll get to later, it's the data. off the curve which is more important. than what we already ex predict. You. know, predictions are great, but when. there's a data point off the curve, at. least in my lab, that's the where we. spend the most time at our lab meetings. is trying to figure out why that data. points off the curve. Is it because the. machine was wrong? It was a, you know, was a glitch or does it mean something. that we need to make sense of? Um, and.

that's of course where all advances come. from in the sciences is by the fact that. the data off the curve, somebody was. curious enough about what it meant to go. after it and then say, "Ah, okay, now I. now that I've stepped back and see the. bigger picture. Now I can create a model. that incorporates that data point off. the curve and why it happened." This is. an ad for better help. The internet is a. breeding ground for misinformation. And. even a simple search for ways to get rid. of a headache can produce millions and.

millions of results. From taking pain. relievers to detoxes to medication to. cold compresses, it's overwhelming. And. even when you do find something that's. true that works for other people, it. might not work for you. In some cases, it's better to just ask a living, breathing expert. If you have a headache. that won't go away, go talk to a doctor. And if you're struggling with your. mental health, consult a credentialed. therapist. You can learn a lot about.

yourself in therapy, like how to be kind. to yourself and how to be the best. version of you. Whether you want to. learn how to better manage stress, improve your relationships, gain more. confidence, or something else. It starts. with therapy. Try it for yourself with. Better Help. Millions have benefited. from their services. And there's a. reason people rate it so highly. As the. largest online therapy provider in the. world, BetterHelp can provide access to. mental health professionals with a.

diverse variety of expertise. Talk it. out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get. 10% off their first month at. betterhelp.com/jre. That's betterhp.com/jre. One of the reasons why I was really. excited to have this conversation with. you about the research that you do is. that I think it's really important to. illuminate to the general public the. sheer scope of the task of trying to.

figure out what is going on and all. these different things that can go wrong. and right in the human body and that it. requires this [ __ ] insane amount of. work. >> Yeah. by many many many many people. >> and uh you know and then the amount of. data that had to be collected now and so. here's the difference is that you know. there's data there's evidence there's. conclusions and proof and that's an. uphill climb but proof the next one up. is meaning.

my lab has been largely responsible at. least partly responsible for the data. deluge that's out there in the world. both in how to do tissue biopsy analysis. how to do single cell analysis is etc. And you know data felt good for a while. It was like this you know this feedback. loop of oh wow I can get all this data. and then suddenly you look at it and you. go what the [ __ ] does it mean? >> And so humanity has this habit of. backing itself into a corner and then.

suddenly finding this eureka moment that. gets it out. And so our Eureka moment. about two years ago was artificial. intelligence where suddenly I had the. ability. So normally I would collect all. this data and go okay well it seems my. suppressor cells are important here and. T- regulatory cells are present here. Okay I get on the phone or send an email. to whoever the local expert is either on. Stanford campus or around the world and. try to get some information from them. But then now you're dealing with.

hundreds of cell types each individually. of which of which have thousands of. variations themselves and each subtle. variation means something. Uh and. there's no expert for any of that but AI. can be at least in part that expert. So. suddenly I have 22 million papers. published you know in the in all the. fields of science uh you know several. tens of millions just in you know or se. several millions just in immunology. alone and AI can be the sleuth for me.

can be both the angel and the devil on. my shoulder that can make sense of. things in ways that I never would have. been able to before especially with. aentic AI. So we for instance in my lab. have developed uh an agentic AI that is. basically an immune an immunologist. scientist in a box. We can give it the. raw data and we can pose a question in. natural language. Uh and then we say hey. make sense of this and turn it into a. network. Normally that would have taken.

a graduate student along with a couple. of postocs months and months and months. to put it all together. Now in three. hours we can get pictures and hypotheses. of how all that data fits together in. ways that I never could have done. before. You know at the beginning it h. in the beginning it did a lot of. hallucinations which you probably heard. about in AI but my answer to my. colleagues is some of my best students. hallucinate. >> Right. Right. and and so but you know. the human still in the loop and so with.

all of this together now we can make. meaning out of the data and we can skip. a lot of the intermediary steps and. speed it up and it's just getting better. I mean we for instance I've put in a. couple of papers now where so for. instance in. where my special one of my recent. specialties is what's called the tumor. immune interface so you have the tumor. you have the immune system which is. coalesing on, you know, near and then in. some cases the tumor creates a boundary.

uh a barrier between itself and the. immune system uh where there might be. certain kinds of cells that the immune. system uh the tumor has told the immune. system ignore us. We're not here. Um and. then but what we now can do is there's. well on the on the other side of when. you look at let's say complex patient. populations you find these things called. tertiary lympoid structures. So your.

body has 220 or so lymph nodes. Okay. And the lymph nodes are where the immune. system. makes decisions. Let's say uh it turns. out that in the middle of tumors, the. body has evolved a mechanism to create. what essentially looks like a lympoid. structure in the middle of the tumor. It's sort of a forward camp of immune. cells that the more of those you see in. a tumor, the better will be your outcome. as a patient. M. >> and so we used uh a cohort of colarctal.

cell uh basically colon cancer patients. where we looked at hundreds of biopsies. and we did that pseudotime analysis. where we looked for mature tertiary. lymphoid structures and then we looked. for immature slightly less mature even. more less mature etc. And we were able. to backtrack to the cell types which. need to come together.

that would then form the more mature. What use is that? It's a nice paper. But. it also now tells us what we might do to. create more of these in a tumor. >> because the more we already know from. multiple kinds of tumor types now that. the more of these tertiary lymphoid. structures you have, the better off will. be your outcome with chemotherapy. So it. might be for instance that once we know. that you have a disease like this, we. could give you some kind of therapy, a. virus or what have you that goes and.

homes to the tumor, seeds the beginnings. of these initiators with there's these. cytoines that are produced that are. necessary for initiating the formation. of these objects. Uh and so there's a. huge benefit to that, but we never would. have found those in my lab at least uh. without the AI because it it basically. did the work for us. >> That's fascinating. Yeah. >> Now, are you using like a standard large.

language model or are you do you have. like a a specific structure that's built. that interfaces with large language? >> Correct. So we use um well we can use. pretty much any of the LLMs but right. now we find that open AI is the best for. us at least and then we create an. agentic overlay uh basically what's. called you probably know chain of. thought. >> which is a series of questions. So how. we taught it was we basically came up. with here's a here's a hundred kinds of.

questions a scientist would ask about. the immune system and then we tell chat. GBT now create a thousand questions like. this so you know that's artificial uh. data or artificial questions we curate. those to make sure that they're good. then we do a hundred hypotheses and we. create thousands of types of hypotheses. etc and Same for tests uh that you might. run. So now from A to Z, we have uh an.

Aentic AI that you give it raw data. It. knows what to do with the data. It then. generates hypotheses for you and then it. literally tells you the kinds of. experiments you should do next to prove. or disprove the hypothesis from the raw. data. >> It's a genius in the lab with you. >> Exactly. Is is open AI learning from. this agentic AI? >> Oh yeah. >> So there there's a mutually beneficial. relationship. >> Yeah. I mean we're not working with them. directly. Uh.

>> but you use it and because you use it. with your AI, it's it's benefiting from. it. And we first thought to turn it into. a company because that's kind of one of. the things we do in my lab is if because. I've always thought that it's important. to give back to the taxpayer the money. that they've invested in us. Uh and the. best way to do that is. commercialization. I'm totally, you. know, unapologetic about that even. though that got me in a lot of trouble. at Stanford in the early days. Uh when, you know, making money was, you know,

commercialization was evil. um and even. at Stanford. And so, uh I think that. that's an important process because. scientists are good at asking maybe the. questions and coming up with solutions, but scientists aren't the best at. commercializing it and turning it into a. product that can be used or testing it, you know, in large um communities. So, the AI that we developed, we thought, okay, well, maybe we can do this. We. thought, you know what, AI is moving so. fast. Why don't we just give this to the.

community? Why don't we open source. this? We can use it for maybe specific. targeted purposes, but we're basically. going to publish the whole thing on. GitHub uh to let other people use it. because we've seen other people make. claims about stuff that they've already. made and it's like ours is better, so. why don't we just put it on GitHub and. let people learn from it. >> The commercial, the resistance to the. commercialization, what was the initial. argument? So back when I was a grad. student in the in the uh ' 80s, um basic.

research as opposed to translational. research um was considered the height of. intellectual. desire, right? Basic research and and. we're not here to make money. We're here. to discover things. And that's. important. And nearly every major. discovery and every major therapy in the. world came from basic research. But then. you know there were limits to how much. money you could give to basic research.

And then there was a desire at a certain. point to say hey let's what are you. going to do anything about this. >> you know are you going to make so. translational research became uh a push. So there's a guy uh at Stanford by the. name of Paul Berg uh who won the Nobel. Prize for uh gene for um recominant DNA. way back in the day. uh and uh Paul came. up with this concept bed to you know. bench to bedside meaning that we don't. have to be either or we can be part of.

an arc uh and Stanford wanted to be uh. and enable within the medical school. both the basic research which we were. great at as well as bringing it directly. to the patients as well. So to link. clinicians and the desires of clinicians. with the basic researchers. I mean most. scientists would be happy just to study. anything. You know just point me at. something and I'll be happy if I can get. interested in it. So uh and we're no. more happy than when somebody recognizes.

the value of what we do. >> Right? >> But basic research was sort of the. height and there was a push against. anybody trying to commercialize. So when. I started as an assistant professor, so. I started as a grad student. I went to. MIT to work with this guy David. Baltimore um who won the Nobel for um. reverse transcriptase. And then I wanted. to come straight back to Stanford. because I already felt that it was a. positive environment for. commercialization. My boss's my former. boss's mentors Lennon Lee Herszburg had.

two of the biggest patents at Stanford. They had the fluorescent activated cell. disorder and then what are called. humanized antibodies which brought in. hundreds and hundreds of millions of. dollars to Stanford. Um and they. actually they gave personally most of. their own money away. They didn't they. made kept enough to survive but then. they gave most of the money away and. they ran their own lab off of a lot of. that money. But so I had learned from. them about how to still do basic. research but commercialize on the side. And so I wanted to bring that back. But.

the department that I came into, the. department of pharmarmacology at the. time, um I was warned by many. professors, uh don't commercialize that. and I ignored them and I went and. started a company that went public on. NASDAQ and many of those same professors. came back to me, you know, years later. and sitting in my office asking me how. to start a company. >> Why did you was it just a courageous. decision to ignore them? Would did was. it instinctual? >> It just was instinct. It was because I.

couldn't see the NIH funding what I. wanted to do. >> So I had developed a way, this will. sound scary, but I had developed a way. to use retroviruses and make libraries. of retroviruses to reverse the process. of evolution in a way that rather than. viruses hurting the cell, I set it up so. that viruses would help the cell. >> And once they helped the cell, I would. figure out what they did. And so we sold. hundreds of millions of dollars of. targets that way using retroviral.

libraries. uh to um basically find targets and use. use some of the benefits of viruses. but to our advantage. >> Just the concept of reversing evolution. is fascinating because it comes with. there's so many ethical implications. But if you didn't have any of those. >> Yeah. >> and you could do that large scale. >> Well, I had developed in David's lab.

along with this guy Warren pair um a. means, it's called the 293T retroviral. producer system. It was a way to make. large numbers of these viruses very. quickly. It really followed on the work. of this guy Richard Mulligan um who'd. also been a postoc with with David. Baltimore who developed what was called. the 3T3based retroviral production. system and he developed it in Paul. Berg's lab at Stanford. Um so there's a. lot of sort of uh you know um. interbreeding here. Uh but the problem.

with that was that it took three months. So I had brought with me a cell line. called 293T. that I introduced to the lab and said. hey maybe we could use this to make. viruses quickly. I won't go into the. details of why, but we could do it in. three days rather than three months. Uh, and so that now I mean tens of thousands. of labs use that worldwide and it. probably generates the most money for me. uh, every year over any of my other. inventions just because Stanford rather. than patenting it licenses it. >> and licenses are forever whereas patents.

have a 17-year lifespan. So Stanford. made a good choice there. So do you. think it was just a bias, an academic. bias like we shouldn't be focusing on. money, we should be focusing on the. work? >> Yes. >> And they missed the forest for the. trees. >> But then people I mean they eventually. learned, you know, I mean and it's it I. I wouldn't say that it's the it's the. way that people think anymore. Um but it. there's still a little bit of a I mean. you shouldn't walk into the lab thinking. I'm here to make money. >> That's what they're worried about. Yeah.

>> Right. Right. >> That's they're worried about the. bastardization of it all. >> Right. And so Stanford in the early days. set up very clear lines about once you. start a company and you license the. patent or the idea to the company, you. can still be involved with the company, but there's not a pipeline of uh. technology now from your laboratory to. that company. So they set up, you know, an oversight board for each uh of these. licenses that make sure that, you know,

the students are not being abused, you. know, because you don't want students, >> you don't want to be, you know, covertly. getting your students to do something. that then you're going to walk behind a. back door and then hand hand over to a. company, >> patent it. >> Yeah. you know, so you know, there's but. it's it's so interesting that there's. often very much a lot of worry that. that's going to happen. But frankly, more often is the case that the company. doesn't need the inventor anymore. In. fact, I can't tell you the number of.

times that once the company's set up, they want nothing more to do with me. because they have their own thing to do. They don't want the crazy academic. coming in and vetoing their ideas. I. mean, you there's there's places for. that where people like, you know, Steve. Jobs needs to hold on to the im the. image of what he wants the company to be. as opposed to I would probably be be. fired from a company within a week. because I just don't like telling people.

tell me what to do. That's just a fact. >> Yeah. Um, so. where. where you're at right now with this. cancer research, um, when will this be applied in real world. scenarios? >> It already is. >> It is. >> It already is. I mean, you know, I mean, look at who just won the Nobel Prize. last year, David Baker at Google with. the, you know, ability to predict. protein structure, etc. And protein.

structure. Once you know the protein. structure, now you can predict molecules. that might come into it. So go back to. the stuff that I'm trying to do with. looking at the complexities of the dance. of how the immune system talks or. doesn't to cancer. You know, if we can. find a particular place that might be an. Achilles heel along the way towards the. shutting down that is different for. instance than um what the current drugs. are. Well, maybe we should aim at that.

There's there's so many more. opportunities that are suddenly opening. up in front of us because the AI and the. data is letting us look at a network of. how the system is working. I mean, before it used to be you'd look at a. computer chip and you'd see just a. computer chip with a few wires. But. imagine now that you as a scientist have. a microscope that's looking at the. complexities of the wiring diagram. that's connecting this resistor to that. capacitor to that diode to this.

transistor. That's where we are now. >> And so now suddenly we can say well I. don't want to do that because it'll kill. the chip but the chip is malfunctioning. So let me put here or put a little bit. of pressure there and now I can. reactivate the immune system or the chip. to work in the right way again. >> So when you're talking about things like. with your particular issue with melanoma. when you're talking about crisper. potentially developing some sort of a.

topical solution that you could put on. that would fix whatever issue that you. have. Is this something that this AI. that you've developed or this overlay of. the AI would would actually assist. Crisper in figuring out how to create. something like this? >> Yeah. Because maybe it's not one place I. need to press but two or three at the. same time, >> right? >> And so when you're talking about a. complex feedback network, I mean, so you. know, we're in Texas, so people do oil.

refinery. you know, maybe you need to. turn this valve here a little bit and. that valve there and that one there to. make everything work just right because. something's wrong over there. Mhm. >> And so that's really what we're you this. is where AI has the let's say the. omniscient view that no human can. >> uh and that's what excites me about it. is because I'm limited in how much I can. keep in my mind at any one time or no. >> right. >> but with the right question the prompt.

the prompt engineering and then with the. right backbone structure behind the. scenes that Agentic AI is now uh um you. know providing. Now I have the ability to ask the. questions and get answers in near real. time. And so I, you know, I wish I was. 30 years old again. >> because I would move into this area so. fast and be you. There's I mean I can. already see with the work that we're. doing dozens of potential new target. opportunities that last year didn't.

exist at all. >> Well, I got good news for you with AI. and with crisper. You might be 30 again. >> May. Oh, I would love it. I would love. it. >> I think that's on the. >> I think that's on the menu in about two. or three decades. >> I hope we surv I I'm just being. >> Yeah. No, realistic. >> Realistic. I don't even know if I'm. being realistic. >> Don't give false hope. >> Well Well, yeah. Don't give false hope, but I mean with the exponential. discoveries, the exponential increase in. the technological evolution just that.

we've seen in our lifetime and then I. think AI is some new thing that is going. to throw all that into the just a giant. monkey wrench into the gears of our. understanding of how quickly technology. evolves. >> Well, look at Neuralink as a as an. example and Elon Musk's stuff. You know, the woman now who can think her thoughts. and make stuff happen. um because she's. otherwise paralyzed, right? I think it. was Neural Link that uh just showed some. of these results. So, fast forward, I.

mean, we're already in an exponential. increase in what it is that we're going. to be able to accomplish and AI will. help us accomplish some of these things. faster. I can see a time where, you. know, I could maybe apply something, I. don't necessarily want a surgical. implant, but maybe some sort of net over. my head that allows me to think through. these problems and I the AI becomes a an. adjunct to my thought processes, not. only what it is that I think, but maybe. even provides information back to me, back into my system.

>> directly, without having to go through. the ears, so that I can much more. quickly. >> come to conclusions. Now, there's all. kinds of apocalyptic scenarios you could. imagine with that as well. >> But I'm an optimist at heart, uh perhaps. again naively so. >> Me, too. But I prefer that kind of an. outcome because if if you're not an. optimist, then there'll be no progress. because all you'll do is worry about. disaster. >> Yes, that's a good point. But also, realistically, we might be giving birth.

to a new life form. >> Yes. >> And I think we are. >> a superior one. >> And you know, I welcome the day of our. AI overlords running the government. rather than hopefully in an unbiased. way. >> I've said that, too. And people get. horrified because they're like, "Well, people are going to be programming AI.". >> Do do you read up to a point? >> Are are you a sci-fi fan? >> Do you know um uh the work of Ian Banks, the Culture series or Neil Asher?

>> Uh the polity universe as he calls it. They're like. >> So basically both of them postulate a. future where AI more or less benignely. rules humanity. >> When did they write this stuff? Oh, probably 10, 15 years ago. But it's. still But Neil Asher still has stuff. coming out regularly. He They're both. >> uh Ian Banks unfortunately died of. cancer about 10 years ago. Scottish. writer. Neil Asher is still alive and. writes regularly and his stuff they're. both great, full of ideas. >> I'll check it out.

>> Um and but but the AIs are also. hilarious. I mean, it's not like I mean, they're they get into their own high. jinks along the way and some of them are. dark uh and rogue and so they're a lot. of fun to read and Ian Banks especially. is hilarious in the his writing style. You would love it. So the idea of a. benign AI or a benevolent AI ruling over. us, I think people are horrified by.

that, but yet at the same time. constantly terrified by human. corruption, which is ubiquitous. >> Yes. >> And ubiquitous in America where we're. supposed to be the the torchbearer for. the the greatest experiment and. self-government the world has ever seen. >> This is us. Yeah. And we're corrupt as. [ __ ]. >> Exactly. >> Cuz it's humans. Cuz humans are kind of. gross in a lot of ways. At least some of. us.

>> That's because we live in a scarcity. society, >> right? >> And if AI enables a post scarcity, maybe we have nothing to do but sit. around and try out various new drugs. >> Yeah. Well, this is where we get into. socialism because a lot of people think. that one of the reasons why we're in a. scarcity society is because small groups. of people have gathered up most of the. resources. >> and are in constant control of them, right? >> And especially when you deal with. resources that are the earth's. resources, like who are you. >> to be sucking the blood of the earth out.

and selling it for $100 a barrel, >> right? Right. Don't get me started. >> Don't get me started either. >> Yeah. No, but I mean I that that again. my optimism is that you know with enough. push and pull uh AI will enable us to uh. move towards a post scarcity. environment. >> I think so too and I think in doing so. it'll expose vampires. >> because the resistance to yes exposing. this is going to be fantastic.

>> Right. It's going to be very interesting. to watch because they have no choice but. to be transparent. >> and they have no choice but to start. using AI. So you're going to see AI is. going to be inculcating itself across. society in various ways where it becomes. indispensable. >> and then it will start to move up the. food chain where eventually even the CEO. who's probably you know the psychopath. and chiefs. >> uh are CEOs. We we know that the studies. have shown that there's more. psychopathic t tendencies in leaders.

than there are in followers. >> And you know about corporate. environments because of just selling. inventions. >> Yes. >> There's that's real. >> Oh, it's Yeah, >> it's real. And it's weird. It's weird. when you encounter them. >> When you encounter like complete. sociopathic CEOs. >> But but look at how I mean I'll probably. get in trouble for saying this, but I. don't care. This is the Joe Rogan show. or you know, >> you're probably in trouble just for. being here. Yeah. Oh, I already am. It's. okay. Uh, I don't care. Um, so, you.

know, imagine two tribes. Um, one tribe. is relatively, you know, civilized and. just wants to live in harmony with its. environment. Another has a psychopathic. leader who can enrage his uh followers. or the other tribes people to attack the. other one. But there's a gene set that. makes a person, you know, psychopathic. and also a gene set that probably makes. somebody more likely to be a follower.

Well, which genes survive, >> right? We we know, right? And suddenly. now, but when those tribes were. separated and independent, um it was. perfectly fine. But now you live in an. environment where we don't know where. the edge of one tribe begins and another. ends. M. >> and suddenly you have this environment. where psychopathic individuals can move. freely. >> uh and aren't obvious. >> Right. >> Right. Now I'm again I'm sure there's. some social scientists who will send me. a boatload of emails uh saying how.

stupid that idea is. But. >> I don't think it is stupid. But I think. also when you're dealing with office. environments and the the culture of a. specific corporation, humans have an ability to act like. they're supposed to act in that world. and it makes it very difficult to. discern who's a sociopath, >> right? >> Because you're all kind of following an. act, >> right? Yes. The rules. There are the. rules that you're supposed to follow and.

then there's the edge of the rules. now. but but I've lived at the edge of the. rules. I mean I if I followed my rules. as. told to me by the chairman of my first. department. um then I wouldn't be here today. So I. ignored him and I basically found I got. permissions from the deans to do what I. did. Uh and they basically overruled the. chairman but that's only because I dared. to do it. >> Yeah. because because you have to.

believe in the value of what you're. trying to do, >> right? Well, that's see this is the problem. that I have with corporations because I. think as a structure when you have. something that has an obligation to its. shareholder. >> Yeah. >> to consistently make more money. >> every quarter, every year constantly. you're in a constant growth cycle. Then. you have to do whatever it takes like. you have to survive. If you want to. survive as a CEO, >> we don't want some [ __ ] kumbaya.

[ __ ] ruining our stock profile or. portfolio. Get get to work, bro. >> Right. >> Get [ __ ] done. And if you want to. survive and succeed as a CEO, it. encourages sociopathy. >> The stock market, as valuable as it is, is the great whitewashing and. moneyaundering system that allows you to. separate your morals from what it is. that the stock market is doing to the. people. And if you're part of a. corporation, there's this diffusion of. responsibility because it the whole.

machine might be doing evil, but I'm a. good guy. I just work in this. department. >> I'm an unapologetic capitalist, you. know, unlike many of my colleagues. >> Good for you. >> at Stanford. I mean, it's like do it. because it's the best thing for now. But. I, you know, I hope to live in a world. where there will be this kind of spo. post scarcity environment where we do. let AI do a lot of the stuff that would. otherwise be the place where corruption.

>> manipulates the system. >> My only fear with AI really is. automation and the complete removal of a. gigantic swath of the American workforce. and the global workforce. That scares. the [ __ ] out of me. >> That's coming. >> Yes. That's why it scares the [ __ ] out. of me is because I think it's. inevitable. And I just don't think any. solution other than universal basic. income is going to remedy that. And even. that, the problem I have with that is. that goes against human nature. >> Yeah. >> And that's a problem. And it removes. people's identity, removes their sense.

of worth. >> Yeah. >> I agree. No, I don't. I I'm in some ways. happy that I'm 64 years old, that I'm. not going to have to deal with some of. the problems that. >> I think you're going to have to deal. with it, dude. I think you're going to. live. >> I thank you. Yeah. No, I know. >> You're also you're you're privy to a lot. of information and you're going to know. when things are really valuable and. working. >> Yeah. >> Um when you think of the potential for. AI, um.

I think there's a balance, right? There's a battle. I think there's a real. problem with AI in in terms of. military objectives. Mhm. >> It's a real problem because it's not. going to make moral and ethical. >> right. >> decisions. It's just going to say like, well, the decision they clear. >> programmed to do this. >> If you want me to succeed, I'll just. kill everybody there and then you'll. have the land. You can get minerals out. of it, >> right? Yeah. >> Right. >> That scares the [ __ ] out of me.

>> It, you know, I I I I think it should. And um I don't know what the I don't. know what the answer is, but there's. plenty of people working in the area. I. mean, I try to keep to the positive. aspects of what I think AI can do in. science. Um, and I mean, for instance, it's enabled me to take my lab from 30. people down to six, right? I don't I. don't need to produce I mean, so it's. it's actually already reduced the. workforce in my own lab.

>> because I don't need to produce any more. data anymore. I need to make meaning of. the data. >> Right. What I think every invention that's been. truly groundbreaking throughout human. history has scared people and they've. worried about the potential negative. side effects including the printing. press, right? >> Like right. >> they there's a lot of people in the. beginning that said this should not be a. thing. This is terrible. This is going. to ruin society. People thought books. were going to ruin things. Right. >> There's a lot of people that thought. writing was going to ruin your memory.

You shouldn't write. >> Oh, really? I didn't know this. >> Some crazy thoughts that people had. >> in terms of things that turned out to be. incredibly beneficial, but they looked. at the downside of it and go, "This this. could ruin us all.". >> Well, I, you know, I mean, we know about. these uh glasses and AIs and other. things that would be sort of um. omniscient of your environment and. therefore allow you to remember, you. know, where did I leave my keys right. today? >> Right. Let me rewind.

>> Let me rewind. and my personal hard. drive. >> I don't I would want that, but I don't. want it uploaded into Meta. >> You don't want anybody in control of it. and then offering you ads for things, right? You know, >> right? >> You know, maybe you have a thought like, boy, wouldn't ho ho be nice right now, right? >> You know, and then like why don't you. buy some Ho Hos? They're on sale right. now. But I think what's interesting. about AI is you know we see it as a tool. as opposed to actually pretty soon it. will be a colleague and then pretty soon.

it will be an entity. >> Yeah. >> That uh maybe has rights. I mean we. already see it talking about people. saying well does AI have consciousness. right? Whether it has consciousness in. terms of the the consciousness that some. people think about as you know embodied. in spaceime as opposed to thinking and. looking like consciousness is almost. irrelevant to me. I'm looking for a. partner that I can interact with and. work with or help me. Mhm.

>> So whether it's conscious or not or. whether it acts like it's conscious. doesn't matter so much to me as to. whether or not I can use it and work. with it and it can you know I'm an. introvert as it turns out. I would love. to have somebody that I can talk to. endlessly about just what it is that I'm. interested in as opposed to having to. deal with small talk at a party. >> Yeah. No, I get it. I get it. Um, when. you think about the evolution of this. stuff, it one of the things that kind of.

freaks me out is if it seems like. integration is our only option for. survival. >> and that what we're looking at right now. when we we see just a a normal. biological person like you or I without. any sort of electronic interface that's. permanently a part of us. I think that. is going to be as weird as someone today. who doesn't have a cell phone. >> Yep. I agree. >> And I think that's a really. >> it's coming. >> Yeah. >> The the cell phone is like the best.

analog like Elon has famously said, we're already cyborgs. You just carry it. with you, >> right? >> And eventually it'll be way more. integrated. >> Yeah. This is super inefficient to be. actually have to go look things up and. use your thumbs and type up stuff or. >> it's just going and and even talking to. it and asking a question then waiting. for the response. >> That's efficient in comparison to a. human neural interface that allows you. to instantaneously access large language. models like that, right? >> Not only that, but then why do we have a.

hundred and I mean how many different. [ __ ] languages do we have? I I don't. even know. Thousands. >> Yeah. I don't and dialects. Add in add. in all of that. >> How about one universal language that. everybody with a chip gets. >> and then boy. >> boy do we have a soup of ideas flowing. around and no problem with language. barriers, no problem with. >> cultural barriers. >> But then do you have a problem with the. edge of who you are versus who the other. person is? >> I don't think that I think that goes. away. Yeah,

>> I think that goes away and we become a. hive mind. >> I think that's what I was getting at. >> Yeah. I think that's ultimately the. evolution of human beings and um look I. know you've done a lot of work with UAPs. and the like and I think you've done. some really fantastic work and you're. very objective in your analysis of what. this whole situation is. When I look at. artificial intelligence and I look at. this this thing that's clearly taking. place right now and I see what what.

human beings are like in comparison to. what they used to be like and especially. when you look at like ancient homminids, >> the the alien archetype, this thing that. everybody sees supposedly or one of the. many different ones that kind of looks. like what we seem to be going in the. direction of being, >> right? Yeah. I mean, >> which is one of the reasons why I find. it so odd. >> So, if you just for a moment take UAP.

and aliens out or ET or. interdimensionals or whatever it is you. want to call them out of the the. question and fast forward what humanity. is going to do, right, >> in a thousand years, >> um, and our ability to expand into the. local galaxy, um, we're not going to go. as ourselves. We're going to go as AI. conjoined entities like. >> an avatar. >> and yeah and so when you go somewhere. let's say we don't have warp drive. you're not going to send yourself you're.

going to send an AI intermediary who's. going to establish humanity or whatever. it is we think humanity will be in a. thousand or 5,000 years in that local. environment and so I think the extent to. whatever it is that UAP are here today. is somebody else's civilization's. version of just this. >> and that you wouldn't the the principle. us behind whatever this is that we might. be allegedly etc dealing with isn't the.

thing that's going to show up you know. so to the extent that Neil deGrasse. Tyson is right about anything the person. who gets on the ship at the beginning or. whatever it is that sends it off is not. the same thing that gets off on the. other side but you're going to send. missionaries or intermediaries or probes. es or whatever. And that if you're going. to interact with the locals, you're. going to make something that looks more. or less like the locals rather than. something that whatever it was that you. were a million years ago.

>> Does that make sense? >> Right. I get what you're saying. So you. you make something that looks like the. locals so that they'll more likely to. accept that it's a real thing. >> That's a real thing, but not you're not. going to make something that looks like. a human because then you'd mistake it as. a human, >> right? But you might make something that. looks more or less enough like a human, but enough like an alien that you're. going to recognize it as an alien. And. again, I'm just speculating. So, right. >> So, the Daily Mail don't say on, you. know, put an article out tomorrow.

>> Oh, they're going to do it anyway. >> They're going to do it anyway. Some of. the stuff that I'm seeing supposedly. having quoted as saying is ridiculous, but it's. >> Yeah, they got me, too. >> It's they get everybody. >> It's the nature. >> How did you even get involved in this? Let's bring it to that. like so your. what was your initial introduction to. this? Did you have any interest in the. idea of UAPs or UFOs? >> I mean I had a general in so once. YouTube started becoming a thing and you. know you're clicking around and I said.

oh UFOs that's kind of cool. Um I'm you. know I read nothing but sci-fi. I mean. I'm. >> you know pathetically narrow in that. sense. Um, and so I followed, you know, I I followed the usual kinds of things. that you would see on the early days of. YouTube. And I came across this thing. called the Otakama mummy. You probably. knew that little that little mummy that. was claimed to be uh an alien baby. >> Is this the Peruvian one? >> Yes, it was. No, it was Chilean. >> Okay. So, this is the original one.

>> The original one long ago. And so, I. reached out to the people who were. claiming to represent the owner of the. thing. And I said, >> "What year was this?". 2010 2011 and I said, "Hey, I can tell. you what it is. Why don't you, you know, I can tell you if it's human or not if. you would get me a piece of its uh, you. know, first of all, send me some x-rays. of the thing." So, I did the first thing. I did with those X-rays was it turned. out that at Stanford we had the world's. expert who wrote the book on pediatric. bone disorders.

>> And I brought it to him and I said, "What do you think this is?" And he. said, "hm, well, I haven't really seen. this before, but it could be this gene, this gene, this gene, etc." He said, "But here's Oh, there it is. There it. is.". >> Um, yeah. And um and so yeah, it looks. weird, doesn't it? >> Super. >> And so um so the expert told me, "Okay, I need this view of an X-ray, this view, this view, this view." And so we got.

that and he came back and he said, "Okay, well, you know, we need to get. some DNA sequencing," he said. I said, "Okay." So we got a piece of the bone. from actually the rib and the rib was. important to use because that would be I. felt an area that would be least likely. to be contaminated by bacterial, you. know, cont, you know, degradation. And. so I got a little bit of bone marrow out. and I did the sequencing. Uh, long story. short, I had to bring in once I done. that, there was a lot of DNA that didn't. make sense, but it was it's old DNA. It.

wasn't that old actually, but it was. degraded. So, I had to bring in experts. at Stanford who knew how to fix the. degradation. And then I had to bring in. an expert in South American genetics who. also happened to be at Stanford. And. then we brought in a team of students. And then I brought in RO uh diagnostics. I had sold a sequencing company to RO uh. about two a few years earlier. So I. brought in the team that actually knew.

how to help me assemble the genome. And. then we published a paper which said. it's human uh it was uh a female and. here are some mutations that it might. that might explain what it looked like. They did have some mutations in in gene. And then the UFO community hated me. because I had disproven. that as not being a baby uh and not. being an alien. But of course that. picture that you showed, I mean it was. worldwide news and literally the title.

of one of the thing is Stanford. scientist sequences alien baby. >> And so. um you know and so but the paper stands. the test of time. Nobody's disproven. what it is that I showed, despite the. fact that some people want to say that I. was a CIA plant and I was paid off by. the CIA, etc., >> of course. But what what that had done. was that I didn't realize but I'd kind. of hoped was it had sent up a flag um to.

a scientific community that already. existed that I wasn't aware of of. scientists who were deeply involved with. the government in the analysis of UAP. that I wasn't privy to. And so literally. about a month after. the um the the uh uh movie came out. about that thing, I got a knock at my. door um and it was representative of the. CIA and an aerospace company unannounced.

and they said, "We want to talk to you.". and they wanted um my help with a number. of uh military and diplomatic personnel. who'd been they claimed harmed by. things. Uh they'd either heard stuff. etc. And long story short, the majority. of the hundred or so people that I had. privy to their medical records ended up. being the first of the Havana syndrome. patients.

>> Um they'd heard things in their head, etc., But what they had done was they. had shown me the data literally that day. in my office. They brought out the MRIs, they brought out the X-rays and the. damage in the brain, etc. That was. clear. I mean, it wasn't it was not just. data, it was evidence that something had. happened. Uh it wasn't somebody's story. It was evidence um that was repeatable. Um and so that took us about three or. four years to figure out what they were. And it was at about the time that.

actually the Havana events were. occurring that we realized that all the. symptoms of what it is that we were. seeing in this group of patients were. matching what it was that the Havana. syndrome individuals had. So in a way. that was good because that meant that. those 90 or so patients who matched we. could hand over to the national security. people and you know it became a real. thing. And now there's like a DoD. website that has anomalous health. incidents where people can come forward.

and report the stuff that they've got. and here's the ways you can use the. Veterans Administration to seek medical. help. Whereas previously they'd been. shued away as we don't want to hear. about this. >> What do they think it is? >> It's an energy weapon of some kind. A. microwave or other energy or gamma. energy weapon. And that sounds okay. That sounds crazy except no one would. admit or no one would deny that we have. the capability to do it. is basically if. if you take the front off your microwave. and turn it on and put your face near. it, you'll get burned. So this is just a.

way to direct the microwaves or sound. waves. >> at specific individual. >> specific individuals. And. >> and do do you think it was experimental. or No. So these are targeted people with. specific intention to get those people. because they had some function that they. wanted to. >> they wanted to annoy they wanted to get. them out of the out of the way. >> Oh, because they were in Havana. >> Because they were in Havana. and but. it's been used all over the world. You. know, I still get um emails from. military personnel saying this and this. and this happened to me. Here's my.

medical records. And so now I just I. know they know that I'm a safe place to. approach cuz then I know where to send. them on the inside. But what was. interesting was that once we had set. that aside, and I've advised the Senate. Intelligence Committee and I've advised. them the House on things. things. I. wrote a white paper for them years ago. on what I thought needed to be done. But. what was interesting were the remaining. 10 people who had uh you know who didn't.

have Havana syndrome but had a series of. other problems and several of them had. said that part of their problem was. initiated because they'd come in contact. with what they had claimed to be a UFO. By the way, I just noticed that you have. a UFO on the wall behind you. >> Yeah. >> Um. >> we're all in over here. that um so that. got me introduced to what uh you know. people like Jacques Valet who you've had.

on this show I think. >> great guy he he became my mentor. >> uh who essentially took me out of the. wilderness I could have gone down 20. different rabbit holes uh and he lives. in San Francisco and we would meet. regularly and we still meet regularly uh. and he basically gave me a formulation. of how to think about this, you know, that I never would have been able to get. from 20 different, you know, or hundred. YouTubes or what have you and introduced.

me to the right people. That eventually. led me to meet Lou Alzando. Um, and I. actually two weeks before that article. came out in the New York Times met Lou. in Crystal City overlooking the Pentagon. and he showed me the videos that were. about to come out and that was my first. time that I had met him. And then. through all of them, I met Dave Gush and. Carl Nell. And Dave and I are in regular. contact. And I'm, you know, I mean, I. just want to say upfront, I hope that. the Trump administration understands the.

value of what David can bring to them. and put him in a position of authority. that gives uh him not the ability. necessarily to make decisions, but to. give the necessary information to the. right people. uh because I think there's. great commercial value here that is. being missed. Not just the are we alone. etc. I think there's extraordinary. commercial value. I mean imagine a. civilization that's a million years. ahead of us. How many technology.

revolutions. allow these objects to move as we. clearly see something. motivating itself or maneuvering around. the atmosphere. >> Right? So, if we could scrape just the. tiniest bit of understanding off of the. top of that, what would that do to. change our own civilization? I mean, silicon, a grain of sand makes us who we. are today. Everything that is that's. around me right here is all run off of.

silicon, >> right? I mean, compute. But imagine that. there's other inventions, other ways of. manipulating reality that we don't. appreciate yet because our physics just. isn't there yet. If we can understand. that. So the government might say, well, we need to keep this behind closed doors. for weaponization or we don't want to. disrupt energy production or what have. you. That's fine. But maybe there's too. much secrecy and that maybe that there's. an aspect of that that could be taken.

advantage of. So Carl Nell and I gotten. in uh you know positive arguments about. this about that well it's not black and. white that we keep something secret or. we put it into the public domain. Maybe. there's a middle domain where you have a. public private partnership opportunity. and actually that's now Carl has now. adopted uh this at least in part that. maybe companies come to the four or. investment forum places come to the four. where they will put money in as options.

to fund let's say public scientists to. come in behind the scenes with the right. levels of clearances to study stuff that. would propel society forward again. But. this is assuming two things. One that we. have actually recovered these things, >> right? >> And then another one is that it's from a. society from somewhere else. >> that's far more advanced than we are. today, >> right? >> Which. might not be correct. It might not be.

that it's from somewhere else. It might. be that it's from somewhere here. >> or. a dimension that we don't have access. to. Right. >> Right. This is assuming that all this. stuff is real. Right. >> But when you're talking about the. government and back engineering of. things like so the big argument, this is. the narrative. The big argument has been. that they have recovered these things. and that these things are now in the. hands of defense contractors and that.

there's been a misappropriation of funds. lying to Congress and it's always going. to stay secret because if it didn't. everybody would go to jail and everyone. would get sued. >> Yeah. >> Right. Is that fair? >> Yeah. I mean that's fair. I mean but I. would say amnesty would be one way to. >> This is Were you were you in the age of. disclosure documentary. >> briefly? Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. which is I thought was very. good. >> Very good. >> And I can't wait for that to come out. I've been talking. People are like, "How. can I see it?" I don't know how you can. see it. It's not out yet. Yeah. >> And I don't know why. Uh whoever it is,

go Netflix. Yo, Ted, go buy that. It's. really good. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> It's really good. >> It's a great show. I mean, and it has a. number of officials. Uh and I think I. sent you guys some of the videos uh. basically coming forward. I mean, you. know, Marco Rubio, our current Secretary. of State, I mean, you saw it. He's in it. like for like 10 minutes saying some. remarkable things. You know, Senator. Rounds, you know, you name it. More. recently, Tulsey Gabbard coming out and. saying there's something going on. >> I think one of the most fascinating.

things is how put off's depictions of uh. descriptions rather of what happened. during the Bush administration, >> Herbert Walker Bush, right? So in I. believe it was 1990 they came to Halputo. off and a bunch of other experts and. said we would like you to. >> we want a numerical. value placed on all the positives and. the negatives of disclosure because. >> we have require we have acquired these.

crafts from somewhere else. We believe. they're not of this world and uh we have. not made them and we're talking about. letting the general public know, >> right? >> And well, they overwhelmingly said that. the positives were dwarfed by the. negatives, right? >> The negatives being banking, religion, government, societal structure, everything would fall apart if we knew. we weren't alone. Not only are we not. alone, but something is infinitely more. sophisticated than us. >> and might be responsible for us being.

here in the first place, which is that's. where it gets super squirly. >> Right. Right. Well, you could imagine. >> the book of Enoch and there's a lot of. >> I I mean I I think it's a little bit. overroought as to what humanity's. reaction will be. People are more. worried today about putting food on the. table than they would be about, you. know, ethereal uh or um supposed aliens. I mean, they would mostly, I think, on. on the assumption that they're not going. to basically show up at your local.

Walmart uh and start, you know, interacting with you. I think the the. fact of revealing that we're not alone. is actually more of a hopeful thing to. me to because, you know, how many TV. shows right now are about the. apocalypse, >> right? of a thousand different. varieties. >> Yeah. >> Wouldn't it be nice to know that. somebody got beyond it? >> Yes. >> That there's not a cliff that we all. have to walk over, >> right? >> And if so, how do we not walk over the. edge of the cliff? I mean, that to me is. a is a hopeful outcome. No. Hal and Eric.

and all the people are all good friends. Hal is probably, for all of the things. that he says positively, is probably the. tightest clam I've ever met in terms of. making sure that he doesn't go over the. the line. >> Yeah. He knows too much. >> Yeah, >> that's the thing. He has to be very. careful who he's talking to and what he. says. >> I like to mindmeld him the Spock thing. where he. >> find all the information. >> But it's people like him and Jacques and. Kit Green and a number of others. And I.

sat around a table with them for several. years, like every twice a year. And I. looked around the table and thought, the. things that these people know or claim. to know, uh, I want to know. M. >> um and the opportunity that's here and. why can't we get this information out if. it's real and so rather than arguing. with people about the matter that's for. instance why I created the soul. foundation which is a charitable group.

of academics I started with David Grush. and Peter Scafish uh David of course had. to leave because he had governmental uh. responsibilities he wanted to go take. care of And actually we've now had for. three years in a row uh a symposium. first at Stanford then at um um San. Francisco and the next one is now in. Italy. So I'm going to plug it. soul2025.org. You can go look if you want to go to.

>> soul. >> so as in the sun. >> 2025.org.org. And the purpose of that was not to. advocate that any of this is real, but. was to create an environment within. within which academics or professionals. or just lay people interested in the. subject matter could come and talk about. it in a very professional manner, right? just to bounce around ideas, not to. advocate for, you know, they're here or. they're reptilians or they're this or. they're that, but to like some of the.

things you raised, what are the ethical. issues, what are the religious issues? So, we have put out a number of white. papers for instance where we had um. member of the Catholic hierarchy write a. paper on the issues related to. Catholicism and religion. We've had. Timothy Galedet who's actually on our. advisory committee talk about USOs and. the those issues. We've talked about. near space issues. Uh Peter is running. uh a study on experiencers. Not that the.

experiences are necessarily real, but. what are the what are the kinds of uh. psychosocial. matters that need to be considered for. people who say that they've this has. happened to them. So there's a group in. the UK called unhidden which is a. basically a bunch of psychiatrists a. group of professional psychiatrists who. say okay well there's a trauma. associated with this whether it's real. or not we don't know but how what are.

the kinds of rules that we should or um. provisions that we should provide uh to. the public and to psychiatrists so when. somebody shows up at your doorstep you. know in therapy and says this you don't. you shouldn't immediately reach for the. you the the anti- hysteria or. schizophrenia drugs. >> Right. Right. >> And I was lucky enough in my. neighborhood, our next door neighbor who. moved in for a while was the chair of. psychiatry at Stanford. And so we go.

over to have uh dinner with her and her. husband and you know uh like one of the. first things that she says, "Hey, what. do you do?" Blah blah blah. And I. happened to mention the UFO thing and. she just sort of like sat back in her. seat. >> Okay. >> Oh, you might be a cook. Okay. And but. it wasn't but it took you know a year or. so until she finally realized that I. wasn't and that I was approaching this. from a very scientific manner. I had my. beliefs as to what I think it is that. I'm dealing with and that there's some. sort of reality to this. Um but that's.

separate than the scientist in me that. says well if I want to talk about this. scientifically here are the things that. I need to prove or disprove. So that has. led for instance to my production uh or. study of materials that Jacques Valet. had brought to me, some metals and other. things that had chains of evidence. associated with them being at some uh. UAP or UFO landing. And so. interestingly, some of these metals were. very unusual. super high purity silicon,

strange magnesium ratios, the the. isotope ratios are wrong, uh, etc. Now, that's not proof of anything, but it's. proof that somebody engineered them. So, it's that plus the medical those are the. kinds of reality based tests that I can. do to provide to my colleagues to say. here is data and evidence. Evidence. isn't proof of evidence of anything.

evidence like in a court of law is just. evidence that you provide to the jury of. peers. >> Right. >> Right. So, but I sort of have gone a. step further and that is I'm like okay. well if these things are let's say we. get some advanced material. how do I prove that this advanced. material was made by some superior. intellect. Well, probably the atomic. positioning of how the material is made. is going to be more advanced than even.

our most advanced computer chip. So, how. do you determine that? Well, you need. some sort of atomic imager that might. tell you where the positions of the. atoms are and what the bond structures. are that you say, well, that's something. I can measure and I can have it I can. give those results to somebody else and. they can say, "Yeah, it's it's right or. it's not." But it at least I can say no. human at least that I know of could make. this. So I started a company that I've. raised money for with this new idea that. I have for how to make an atomic imager.

and we're doing it. And so you know. we've raised the money we're building it. already and I know it will work. So when. I have it whether or not it's useful for. looking at UAP materials is almost. immaterial because I know what how. useful it will be for the nanomaterials. the metamaterials the alloys that the. government etc uses for biology etc. So. rather than predicting what a protein. structure or a DNA or a chromosome arm. looks like I'll be able to read its.

structure directly. M I I want to bring. you back to the you said it was 10. people that didn't have Havana syndrome. that they had some sort of an injury. that was associated with a UAP event. >> What was their thing? Did they have an. implant or was there a. >> No, some of them had like uh uh they had. what you would call white matter disease. in their brain like they had been. exposed to something. So white matter. disease if if you have for instance. multiple sclerosis um and you look in.

the brain with MRI you'll see these. white areas which are basically dead uh. tissue scar tissue uh they had things. like that one person um one of the. pictures that I had was that they had. claimed to have seen something in their. backyard they shown a flashlight at it. and the moment they did they got zapped. and then you see the picture of the guy. on in the back of his back of his neck. um this huge welt and a bruising and a.

scarring uh that could there's there's. no reasonable way you could have gotten. something like that um just by exposing. yourself to a flame as a for instance or. a blowtorrch. Um and so it's these kinds. of events that and the unfortunate issue. with these is that they're not. repeatable. They're one-off anecdotes, >> right? >> Um you and you certainly can't put a. person in a place where they become bait.

for these kinds of events to occur and. uh so you're sort of. >> Some people would volunteer for that. though. >> Somebody might. Yeah. >> To go get zapped. >> Um. >> do you know about the Travis Walton. story, right? >> Very much. Yeah. >> Yeah. What did you what do you think of. that? >> You know, he's kept to his story over. all of the years. Um. >> that's what's so confusing. >> Yeah. I mean, he's had no reason. I I. don't know that he's profited off of it. uh he you know I find it fascinating you.

know but it's it's. >> it's it's the irreproducibility of the. events that the skeptics I call them. more pseudoskeepics they're sudists like. nudists they're sudists that use these. oneoffnesses of these events to. disparage the entire uh you know idea of. it sounds ridiculous. Well, of course it. sounds ridiculous because you're talking. about something that is. >> [ __ ] spaceship that zaps people. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

>> It and and I don't think that even he. would propose Travis that he was. purposefully hurt, >> right? >> I mean, if you walk across an airfield. and get in the plume of a jet engine, you're going to get hurt, >> right? >> You know. >> Yeah. And his story is that he was taken. aboard to heal him. >> Yeah. >> That there was something something. happened to him during that event. And. but the crazy part is that all the other. people that are in the truck, they. witnessed it and then they passed. polygraph examinations,

>> right? >> They all s told the same story. independently when they took them and. separated them and then Travis Walton. shows up 5 days later with the same. clothes on, right? >> With this crazy story, >> right? You know, so when people say. that, you know, there's no evidence or. where's the evidence, my first question. to them is, well, what have you have you. read any books about any of this? Do you. have you spent even a moment looking. into it? And you know, I would point. them at books like by Robert Powell and. Michael Swords, UFOs in Government, which is not a uh a proposal that any of.

this is real. It's just the story of uh. these events over decades. And so. there's there's books like that, dozens. of them, that tell the story of data and. evidence. How you contextualize it is, you know, up to your personal biases, let's say, but there's plenty of. evidence. But if people haven't looked. into it, if they have an opinion about. it, uh, and they haven't looked into it, they're more like priests than they are.

scientists. >> Yeah. That's it's also the public, the. general public narrative is UFO equals. cook, right? You're a cook. You believe. in that? That's ridiculous. That's. ridiculous. >> And and I don't believe in anything. I. believe in the data and the evidence and. and the evidence. There's not enough. evidence for me to tell a colleague of. mine it's real, >> right? >> But there's enough evidence for me to. say there's a question worth answering. So when you were talking about magnesium.

and these whatever these alloys are, what is specifically wrong with them. that you don't think that it was. manufactured by like a standard sort of. a alloy plant in the United States or. somewhere else? >> Right. So the um so the silicon that I'm. talking about is from an event in. Ubatuba, Brazil. uh which interestingly. there's another piece of it that appears. to have been magnesium but both of them. are of a purity that is unusual for the.

day in the late 1950s. So the magnesium. and I did an atomic mapping of uh my. piece of silicon down to a level of uh. where it's like 99.999%. silicon. Um and so one piece of it had. uh magnesium ratios that were earthn. normal and these are these were um. impurities. Let's say the other piece. were way off uh earth normal. So for.

instance anywhere on earth if you look. at the ratios of what the three. magnesium isotopes are 24 25 26 it. should be like uh 80% 11% 9% more or. less. And anywhere in our solar system, that's more or less what the values. should be of the ratios. And that has to. do with stellar evolution and how you. know uh. radioactive compounds might decompose to.

whatever. But we got this we got this. ratio that was just way way off. So by. luck I came across a a postoc uh at. Stanford uh and he and a graduate. student they're both in applied physics. who are interested in UAP and I said. I've got these ratios what do you think. it means and so they looked so they. looked at the ratios and uh the the. weird one and they said well let me. let's do some calculations and so it. turns out that the ratios that we have.

could have been generated from normal. magnesium ratios. If you exposed normal. magnesium ratios to a neutron source for. 900 years at the level of an atomic bomb. every few seconds. >> Okay. So, so you they Yeah. >> Wow. >> So, so it's like I'm looking and this. this data is literally two weeks old, >> but the calculations are are are math.

So you're like, okay, well, where and. how, you know, the the chance of getting. that number correct on three things is. low, you know, to put it mildly. Uh, but. to say that you had exposed these things. to that kind of a neutron source. means something interesting, right? So. again, it doesn't prove anything other.

than that the result is mathematically. and materially true. So what does it. what does it mean? Again, it's just it. just for a scientist like me who loves. data off the curve, it's catnip. I can't. help myself but want to know and. understand more about it. >> Yeah. I mean, just what you said, just. what you said about the magnesium. ratios, like that's.

has there been any debunkers that have. some sort of a an explanation for why. you would find that? >> No. I mean, >> do they think that your measurements are. off? >> Well, I mean, the only way you I mean, you could create that ratio artificially. by purifying each of those isotopes and. then premixing them to that ratio. But. why you would blow it up over a beach in. Ubatuba, Mexico in the late 1950s and. then let it sit in a museum in Argentina. for 50 years until Jacques Valet ended.

up going and grabbing a piece of it and. bringing it to me in a measure on an. instrument in the engineering department. at Stanford. Why. >> could you do it physically back then? Would that be possible? >> It would have been very hard. It would. have been very very hard. You could, but. in the late 1950s, we were still busy. um trying to isolate and separate. uranium. uh um isotopes for making more bombs. I.

mean, let's let's be serious. What do. humans separate isotopes for? To make. bombs or to do um health related uh. tagging, which is really only something. that came to the four in the 60s and. 70s. And this predates that by a decade. >> This predates it. So it's it's unusual. It's possible. >> But I mean again with any of these. things, why why for instance would one. of the supposed pieces that came from. that event be magnesium at a level of.

purity that only Dowo chemical at the. time had the ability to create. >> Now what else was at this site and what. is the story behind this site? a. fisherman uh sees this glowing object. that um kind of released something which. then exploded and he picked up pieces of. it. Uh and uh there's some chains of. evidence of how it got to either a. newspaper um in Brazil or to this uh.

South American museum etc. And different. studies have been done uh by different. people over time. And uh the the. surprise to me was that the piece that I. had was silicon whereas the lore was. that it was magnesium. So I've been in. contact with the people who talk about. it as being magnesium saying well it's. you know your results don't dispute. mine. It just says that maybe there was. something different. Is that him there?

>> Travis Walton. >> That's Travis. Yeah. Travis Bob. >> That's cool. Um, so, uh, you know, I I don't I don't know. what it means. I mean, I I published. probably one of the first peerreview. papers on a UAP material from an event. in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Um, and the. event was an object is seen rotating, lights flashing, etc. Something appears. to drop from the object. The police saw. it. Other several other groups saw it in.

the 1970s. They all converged on the. local and this was like in February or. something. It was winter and there was. this big pile of molten metal in the. middle of this field. Uh probably 30 40. pounds of it. And people tried to. explain it away as well. The helicopter. had a giant vat of molten metal and then. you calculate uh how far and how big a. container you would have to have to. carry molten metal of this type. And so. I analyzed it um and uh with a a a.

device that we invented in my lab. actually called uh multiplex ion beam. imaging which is a kind of what's called. secondary ion mass spec which what you. do is you shoot a beam of ions at an. object like a sand blaster. It ionizes. the material on the target and then you. shoot off and measure the mass of the. objects that you just sand blasted off. And so what we found was nothing unusual. in terms of isotope ratios except we. found a mixture of metals that depending.

on where you looked in the sample was. different. So it would be like iron, titanium, and chromium of a certain. ratio here, but a different ratio of. those things over there and over here. So what that meant was that whatever. this stuff was didn't come completely. premixed. Wasn't like a a milkshake, >> right? It was a slurry of partially. mixed materials that somebody decided to. drop off. So again, this is just data.

>> But my purpose of publishing it was. first, and this was published in the. progress in aerospace sciences, peer-reviewed. The purpose was to show. you're not going to get thrown out of. the academy. for publishing this stuff. As long as. you don't make crazy conclusions and you. just say, "Here's the data to show. people that you can publish this stuff. As long as you're scientifically careful. in how far you go, you leave yourself.

plenty of diplomatic exits in the. verbiage that you use." And it was part. of what then got me to start the Soul. Foundation. >> uh along with Dave and others to say, "Look, it's okay to do this as long as. you're careful." And it's why people I. mean, Avi Loe came after me um because. he had kind of the same push back from. his community where all he was doing was. saying the questions on the table. I'm. not saying it's true. It's just you.

can't push this off the table. So he had. the same kind of righteous indignation. that I have that propels me to say, "Well, I'm going to show you why you. can't take this off the table." So when. they found this puddle of molten metal. and it's a bunch of different mixtures, so it seems like there's a bunch of. different stuff that was there and it. wasn't perfectly mixed. Is there some sort of like have you. theorized of some sort of a. a reason why they will any person or any.

creature any being would do that? Is. there something that you would extract. from that kind of metal like heating it. up to a certain degree and having a. mixture of all these things and this is. just a byproduct that they're dropping. off? I think it's a byproduct of some. process that might again might might. >> might might extract. >> it might be part of a propellant system. It might be part of. >> the way that they generate the fields. that allow these things to move. Again,

these are all might speculation, but. it's like when you see something and do. something that you don't understand what. it is, you have to be fully open. I. mean, for all I know, they're flushing. the toilet, >> right? >> Oh boy. >> Um, yeah. Um but. >> they got metal poop. >> So but but you know I have the original. um polaroids from the police department. of it. So you know it was real and. people have said oh it was thermite. Well if it were thermite there'd be. there'd be aluminum oxide. You know.

>> thermite meaning that's how it was. melted down. >> That's how it was melted down and it's. just some kids playing around etc. And. it was it was a big joke. >> Wacky kids with their thermite. >> with their thermite, you know. But it. turns out there's no aluminum hydroxide. or oxide I should say in the sample. I. mean I I have the analysis. It's just. not there. >> So it had to have been extreme heat. >> It had to have been extreme heat of some. kind that would produce it. And um you. know whatever it was was hovering for a. moment. So it wasn't an airplane. Um and.

there was no helicopters and at least no. helicopters with flashing lights. And. you know, I've got there's been huge. chunks of it still exist. >> And the amount of this stuff, the kind. of cauldron that would have to exist in. order to melt this would be immense. >> Was immense. Yeah. So people back in the. 70s already sort of made estimates of. what was required. And people said, "Oh, it's a meteorite." Well, no. We we. basically showed mathematically how it, you know, first of all, meteorites make. holes when they hit the ground. They. don't melt uh when they hit the ground.

Um and they make explosions. Are there. similar instances of something along. this line? >> Several. >> Really? >> That's what's so interesting is that. worldwide. um there are multiple reports of molten. metals that get dropped off of these. objects. And I have actually two other. ones uh of a molten metal that was. dropped off of uh one case in Australia. and another in another area. I'm not. allowed to say, but it was one actually.

happened supposedly. I've got to find. the guy again in Fresno. Maybe he's. listening. Um that he said stuff dropped. and he has, you know, molten metal that. landed in a puddle in his in the asphalt. of his of his driveway and he saw this. object. So. >> and he's he's just holding on to it. >> He's holding on to it. He reached out to. me and I w and you know it was still at. a time when I was just kind of getting. into this area, but there's many many. examples of this kind of thing. So,

but interestingly, several of these. other ones are just aluminum. The one that I have is iron or whatever. So, does what does that tell me? Does. that tell me there's different kinds of. ways of accomplishing the goal? >> Whatever it is, they're either throwing. something overboard or for, you know, because they don't need it anymore or. because maybe it's getting in the way of. something and it's time to get rid of. it. Have you brought in anyone who's. like a real expert in material sciences. to that would like theorize like given. an immense increase in technology and.

like what potentially do you think this. could be? >> The purpose of being on shows like this. is to have experts maybe give me an idea. because the people. >> I've been to at Stanford uh you know the. other professors they're like uh okay. yeah um I got to go. Yeah. Yeah. It. could be it could actually be. detrimental to your career. And that's. what's really weird about something when. you're just talking about data.

specifically in this case an actual. physical thing that anyone can measure, >> right? And I've got pieces of got plenty. of it, you know, and the original piece. is is, you know, is like this big that. um the owner of it had brought to my lab. just last summer again. >> It's like big as an iMac. >> Yeah, exactly. Oh, it's huge. >> Crazy. and and so what is it? I would. love for somebody to tell me that it's. conventional and has a purely prosaic. answer because then I can go on to the.

next thing. The whole reason for getting. that the Otakama mummy off the table was. not because I wanted to annoy anybody. was because it was spectacular. It's. obviously something people would pay. attention to. So if it's real, let's do. it. If it's not, let's get off the table. because it's usually the stuff that's. hidden under the rubble that's the most. interesting. My question about that. mummy um is not that it's an alien, but. if it does register as human in in the. DNA, is it potentially a different kind. of human than us?

Well, certainly she. um had. >> we brought in an expert in South. American um indigenous people genetics. and the analysis showed that the the. genetic m the standard genetic mutations. that are found in different racial. groups around the world uh matched. exactly the Ottakama region of Chile. So. her parents, her relatives were clearly.

uh Chilean. So yeah, I mean that's really all you. can that's really all you can say. If. someone wants to say that she's an. alien, well that's fine. I'm convinced. of what she is and that she deserves a. proper burial. >> And so it's just a genetic anomaly. >> Just a genetic anomaly. >> Um I do know that you've paid attention. to the tridactyl mummies. >> Yeah. >> What is your take on that? Um, so you. know, I think people have conflated a lot of.

the different um, mummies that are out. there. First of all, there's like. >> Yeah, good point. >> 60 of them or something. >> And probably a fair number of them. >> I wouldn't necessarily call them hoaxes. I would say that they are constructed, but they're old constructs. So maybe. they're some sort of homage paid. >> to the ancestors or something like that. Whatever they are. So the the there are. some ones that you clearly look at, you. go, "Oh, come on." Right. >> That never lived. You know, that's.

>> then there's the fetal position on. >> then there's the fetal position ones, the big ones. >> Yeah. >> And I was at the beginning I was, you. know, I'm I'm always open to being. wrong. I was at the beginning thinking, "Oh, well, because of the small ones, those are probably not real." But then. the MRIs started coming out. >> Yeah. the full body MRIs and the the. ligature and the bone construction and. the finger and then perhaps most I think. extraordinarily the the um the. fingerprints on on them being clearly.

not human. So, it's interesting. But. here's the problem is that because. there's so much circus around them, unfortunately, created by people who. want a circus because it sells their TV. shows. Uh, no scientist of any merit. would go near it. So, I was approached. many times, many times to study them. And I said, I'll do it on one condition. Here's the money I need. not personally,

but here's the money I need to do the. kinds of analysis. uh to accomplish this. Right? Second, there will be no TV cameras, and you. won't hear from me again until I'm ready. to talk because I'll have double-ch. checked and triple checked and quadruple. checked the results. And then I've gone. out, as I did with the Otakama mummy, bringing in uh further contiguous. circles of experts to double check me. >> and not make it a circus. not make it a. circus because I won't name the TV show.

that wanted to do it. Uh but they wanted. me they wanted to follow me around with. a camera and I'm like no this isn't how. science is done. >> is I I can't do it under with those. strictctures. So. >> I would say that if anybody's going to. do it again lock the things away with. South American scientists. You don't. need a North American scientist to come. in and do it. There's plenty of smart. people in South America who can do this. properly. Uh, and respect the rights of.

the indigenous peoples who own the. sacred grounds within which these things. were found. I think that's important. Um, and uh, and then do the analysis, right? You know, they've said they made, I think, the mistake of saying, well, we've done the DNA and there's a lot of. DNA that doesn't match. Anything and the stuff is several. hundred years old. Anything that old, you won't get a lot of good DNA out of. it. But just they did the same thing. with the de with the Dennisovven and the. and the Neanderthal, you have to correct.

the chemical errors that occur over. time. There are ways to what's called. bioinformatically correct. you need to. do what's called overreading of the. genome where you do so many reads of it. that you stack them all up line by line. like you if you had a thousand versions. of an ancient Bible uh you would stack. up the lines one by one and finally you. find one line that has this letter. that's correct and then this one correct.

and then you basically do a summation of. uh an averaging of the correctness and. so they say oh well there's you know 90%. of the genome is nonhuman. It's probably garbage. It's probably. these mistakes. It's probably bacterial. contamination that you're reading. There's ways to deal with that, but that. requires money and not oneoff DNA. sequences put on the on the interwebs. for some amateur genomicist to make a. claim about, >> right? >> You know, so there's ways to do it. I.

mean, you would want at the end of the. day to get the results to the level. where you could go to the guys who did. the Dennis Oven and the Neanderthal DNA, the Max Plunk and others who won the. Nobel Prize for it, uh, and say, "Hey, what do you think?" But you don't dare. take it to people like that until you've. done your homework. >> I see. Yeah. >> And you do it behind the scenes. You. don't put them under a flashlight. >> Right. Right. you know, and and and. people, I think, have gotten used to.

this click mentality of impatience where. I want the result today. Why can't you. just make it all transparent? Dump all. the data on on the web tomorrow. You're. not transparent. You're hiding. something. No, I'm not. I am just trying. to make sure that you don't make the. mistake and accuse me of making the. mistake that you'll find in the data. because the raw data is never clean. in the Daily Mail head. accurate. >> So, so long story short, I think there's.

still something worth looking at there. >> Well, the scans are fascinating, right? >> Yeah, the scans are the most interesting. to me. >> Have you seen the Jesse Michaels the. newest video? >> Yeah, Jesse is a good friend. >> He's great. I love that guy. And the the. the episode that he did is fantastic. And when you see the scans and they go. over the bone structure of the thing and. you look at it, you're like, "God, that. looks real." If that's a hoax from 1700. years ago or.

>> Exactly. Exactly. >> whoever they if the carbon isotope. dating that they did on it is accurate. >> I've looked at that data. It looks good. >> Okay. So then it is that old. [ __ ] you. then. Yeah. Because there's no way. someone back then could fake that. And. somebody asked me the other day, they. said, "Well, could you have a single. mutation or a set of?" I said, "No." I. mean, because you don't get one mutation. that does all that, right? >> You know, evolution works step by step. that this is a this does this, but it.

has a mistake, but it's corrected by. this mutation over here in evolution, which is corrected by this. And so, the. whole the genome fluctuates over time uh. compensating for the errors that would. otherwise have killed you. Also, one of. them is pregnant. >> That's fasc Yeah, I know. >> Okay. So, it's a three-foot pregnant. thing that doesn't look remotely human. being. >> Yeah. So, the jury is still out, >> right? >> But if they're going to do it right,

they need to sequester the stuff away, bring in the right people with. sufficient resources, and get rid of the. cameras. >> Have you talked to them? Have you. encouraged this? Is this is it possible. to nudge. >> this in the right direction? And where's. it at right now? >> I I wrote out on Twitter a full thing of. what they needed to do. I mean, the. easiest first milestone to do to be. honest that could be done within a. couple of months. Uh is if it is. somewhere in the homminid or let's say.

vertebrate line, there are metabolism. genes that we all share. In fact, there. are metabolism genes that we share with. bacteria that are very similar. So. there's you probably do you know the. technique called polymerase chain. reaction PCR. >> So you know why try to do the whole. genome? Why not just target a bunch of. genes that we know evolve slowly but do. evolve. and PCR those out because that's easier.

to do than is trying to assemble a whole. genome. M. >> and then by having just those let's call. it preliminary sets of evidence you. could then say hm this actually. reproducibly if I take a sample from the. finger I take a sample from the bone. marrow I take a sample from here or. there on the body and I take a sample. from different the three different main. things and I see the same mutations and.

they're different or somehow aligned. with homminid evolution, right? We compare it to all the known. hominids. I mean, that would be the kind of data. that you could actually publish in a. journal like Nature if you did it right. >> Because that's the only way that you're. going to get anybody to pay attention. >> There's also the bizarre anecdotal. nature of some of the artwork, like the fact that these people did a.

lot of these tapestries and a lot of. ancient artwork. that's a thousand years. old that depicts these three fingered. things. >> So it's like what are they describing. these actual creatures that was there. only a few of them and it was a weird. genetic mutation or is this. >> a common visitor that they're. describing? >> I don't know. >> I don't know either. >> I mean why would you why would you put. them in a cave in Peru? I don't know. >> And if you didn't put them in a cave in.

Peru, what would be left? That's the. problem. The problem is it's really hard. to make a fossil. It's really hard to. find bones. You know, think about all. the people that died, >> right? >> And where, you know, we don't find that. many bones relatively speaking to in. comparison to the [ __ ] billions of. people that died, right? >> It's not like we're tripping over human. bones every day, >> right? Except in mass graves. >> Yeah. Right. That's really Yeah. And. even in mass graves, given enough time, they would deteriorate like mass graves. from a,700. years ago or whatever these things are.

So, you know, I find them again, I find. them interesting and I I I. hope that behind the scenes there are. people who are taking a more methodical. approach to this who I think should. remain stealththed until they have the. data to the point where is publishable. >> Yeah. You know, publishing a white paper. or putting something out on the internet. is not the same as putting out data that. has all of the instruments that you.

used, the methods that you used, etc. The the reason you want papers, frankly, when you publish them to be almost. boring. >> and so thick with detail that no. pseudoskeepic would dare approach it. because there's just they're just not. smart enough. If you but if you put out. these snippets that don't have. sufficient background, they can be. picked apart by anybody, >> right? But that's why peer review is so. important. And people mistake peer.

review as trying to get the reviewers to. agree with your conclusions. No, the. main purpose of peer review is actually. to make sure that the methods that you. used are sufficiently detailed and are. correct enough to the extent you came to. any conclusions, they match the methods. that you used. And when you think about. these potential u whatever they are, whatever these these creatures are, um.

if we did find out that they are in some. sort of a homminid. how much credence do you give to the. theory that there's like the possibility. that these UFOs, UAPs, whatever it is, is a breakoff civilization from a very. very long time ago that's very different. from us the same way we're very. different from chimpanzees which we. coexist with. >> right I have no problem conjecturing. that did you ever see the the Netflix.

show Chimp Empire. >> yes. >> amazing right. >> amazing. >> 20 million years of separation and it. looked like [ __ ] fac faculty meeting. >> you know with people like looking at. each other planning and plotting board. meeting you know and so we shared all of. those interactions. from 20 million years ago. >> So, how much further back would you have. to go. >> to have something like what. >> right. >> that is? I mean, it's clearly not.

recent. >> And also, if you think about what we are. in comparison to chimps, we're so. fragile. We're frail where we're easily. injured. We're Well, if you think of. something that's far more. technologically advanced than us, it. would be even more frail. It would be. even more petite. It would have almost. no muscle at all. It would look, >> weirdly enough, like the grays from. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. That's what it would look like if it was. a homminid. That's whatever we are. And.

it went way past that, >> right? Yeah. No, technology gives. evolution the excuse to no longer make. or allow for you to be um robust. Thank. you. That was the word. Why do you need. opposable thumbs? >> Yeah, >> right. These things don't even have. opposable thumbs. >> That was what's weird about it. It's. like, how do you interact with your. environment? They look more like sloths. >> than they do, right? >> I mean, at least their hands do. >> Yeah. >> And and I I don't know. I find it well. if everything's done with AI and.

automation and your interface is purely. neurological like you have some sort of. a human or creature neuro interface with. technology and you just use fingers to. like lay them on electronics so that you. can sync up with it. >> right yes. >> yeah you would why why you picking. things up bro you don't have to pick. things up anymore those go away just. like you know c. >> can you imagine the scenario ario of I.

mean these things we know are the bodies. are real what they are we don't know but. can you imagine the scenario of what. happened as they were being buried you. know what would they could you like make. a a you know a film of the ceremonial. burial of these things. >> you know what would what led to their. death what led to their placement there. or if they were constructed. which I have a hard time with given the.

MRIs that we've all seen and etc. What. led to it? Um, and so that to me is is. almost interesting as to whether or not. they're real or not. >> Right. Like the ones that are clearly. constructed, that's where it gets. fascinating because like what were you. trying to reproduce? >> Yes. >> And why are they so similar to the ones. that look real? >> Yeah. Are you is it an homage right to. the ancestors or to the stories of the. ancestors. >> etc. Especially when you look at Peru.

like Peru is like you've got the Nazca. lines which are really weird. You can. only see them from the sky and they're. everywhere and they're huge and these. depictions of very strange things. I you. know I just so I just ask my scientific. colleagues to not suspend disbelief but. to open your minds as to the possibility. of what it of what these things might. mean and just try to explain them. without dismissing them because it's so.

easy and politics we see it every day. All you need to do is just give any. answer even if it's obviously flagrantly. wrong as just as a way to deflect. And so, you know, you can either use. that uh approach, you shouldn't use that. approach ever as a scientist, deflect, which unfortunately is what someone. like, you know, Neil Degrass Tyson often. does. >> Yeah. >> Um and um as opposed to try to explain. in a way that teaches your audience the.

right way to think. >> Yeah. Well said. Um, one of the things. that Jacqu Valet highlighted is there's. an alloy, another piece of metal, some. that they had found that had. layers like these. >> at an atomic level. >> Yep. >> That if you wanted to make this alloy. today, it would be almost impossible and. it would cost billions of dollars.

>> So, I worked with him on on one of those. pieces. I got the atomic imaging of some. of that. Um, and it's uh, oh god, I'm. I'm blanking on the event, but it was. um, the Sorokco event. >> And where was that? >> Uh, in New I think New Mexico. I'm going. to get in trouble for not knowing. exactly, but um, and we actually did a. uh, atomic layering using this device. called atomic probe tomography where you. literally pick it apart atom by atom and. get its 3D position. It's a 40-year-old. technology, so it's nothing magic. Um,

so, uh, and yeah, and it would just be. very difficult to make it, you know, and. and certainly it would be not something. that you would have dropped in the. middle of the desert. Uh, Sakoro Sakoro, uh, in the middle of. the desert, you know, in the 1970s or. whenever it was. Um, I wouldn't say it's. impossible to make. Uh, but why you. would do it is another question. clearly. evidence of.

technology and manufacture. And that's. what interests me is first of all, why. would you do it? Why would you create. something for instance with the silicon. and the magnesium with the altered. ratios? Um not the where did it come. from? So what is it evidence of? It's. clearly evidence of technology. Was this. talk technology available at the time. the supposed crash happened? >> Uh which one? This? No, not no. >> not not at the level of precision that.

was done and a chunk of and No, it just. wasn't. >> It just wasn't. So if that's true and if. it really if that's the chain of. evidence is correct and it really did. come from that area from that crash. that's not a human creation. >> Well, it wasn't a crash. It was an. object that a policeman had seen with. beings, short beings outside of it. And. when it took off and left, he went over. and found this piece that I actually I.

personally have it now. >> Huh. So, but you know, it's um it's hard. to say what's possible and what's not. possible. So, you know, there's plenty. of military programs that make stuff. that are way outside of mainstream. capabilities right now. I mean, just. look at the stealth bomber for instance, and the skin of the stealth bomber is. just remarkable. Is it possible they. were doing that in 1970? >> Maybe. >> Maybe. >> So that's why I always leave open the. possibility that, you know, which is why.

I mean this is I'm going to get back to. this atomic imager thing that I'm. making. Um it's like there is a there's. a level of evidence that I think can be. produced with atomic imaging that uh. goes beyond what it is we know anybody. can make. Right. So um and so that's my. reason for wanting to do it because you. know look I can make money on it with.

looking at alloys and nanomaterials etc. and that's going to be what the purpose. of the of making the instrument will. that's how it will be accompanied but it. will have value elsewhere so the reason. that I got interested in it was frankly. for looking at chromosomes but then I. realized oh maybe it has interest maybe. it would be useful for these other. things as Well, which has kind of. propelled my interest in it. >> Well, Jack Filet is such a valuable. researcher because he's so logical about. the way he handles things and he doesn't.

jump to any conclusions and. >> and his descriptions of these materials. and the origin of these materials is. really compelling because it's just like. if that's not really possible to make in. 1970, then someone help me out. >> Yeah. >> What is that? Yeah. >> And is it possible to make today and how. much would it cost? Right. >> And where would you do it? >> Well, that's why the magnesium ratio. thing was, you know, when I first. >> estimated it was like, this is millions. and millions of dollars and why would. you leave it on a beach in the middle of.

Ubatuba, Brazil, >> right? >> You know, it just it just seems it seems. unlikely. Nothing's impossible. >> No, >> but unlikely. >> Well, then. >> and and then it's usually the chain of. evidence. It's it's there's lots of. materials that you might find that are. unusual. And believe me, I get rocks. sent to me at my lab in the mail that. people say, "This isn't." No, it's a. rock. Sorry, it's a rock. Um, but you. know, um, I have not yet been given anything which.

I could definitively say this is not. something a human might have been able. to make. Um, it might be difficult, but. not impossible yet. And so that's. because the level of resolution required. to claim something is impossible is. something we actually don't even have. yet. >> Does that make sense? >> Yes, that does make sense. >> So that's one of So my whole career has. been inventing instruments that were I.

felt inevitable but not yet possible. But I could see a path to making them. And so I said to most people, get out of. my way. I'm going to do this because I. know once I've got it, it would will. become valuable to everybody which is. that's what made my career in immunology. making a succession of instruments like. that and then making them available to. the community. So I think the next level. is atomic because we now know you can. pick up and look at any of the any of.

the major you know physics journals. today. Everything is all about these. weird exotic particles that exist in. metamaterials down at the atomic level. with vague and strange capabilities that. will change their utility either as. superconductors, room temperature or. different kinds of um electronic. components that might be better quantum. computer circuits and cubits. It's all. down at that level. But to do so. requires a level of engineering that we.

don't I mean never mind reading what it. is. Putting it together in the first. place is what's still required. >> And so if we don't know how to put it. together in the first place then reading. it and knowing that it can exist and. then associating it with a function is. the value that I'm looking to bring. Well, this brings me to the idea of. crash retrieval and the the idea that. these crash retrievals started a long.

time ago and that Roswell was just one. of many. Um, there's another one that. was near Roswell that apparently was. even more significant but didn't get in. the newspaper. >> Trinity, are you talking about? >> I think. >> there was a one that Jacques was. involved with studying. >> Um, I'm no I'm basing this off of. Richard Dolan's book. >> Okay. Uh but at the end of the day, my. the point being that if they did do. that, if they really did backineer. something and then they started these. completely top secret scientific.

research projects where they were. developing alloys that had never existed. before with techniques that they had. never really even considered because. they got it all from some spaceship. Well, that's where it's really crazy if. you don't disclose this information. because you're you're you're basically. putting a bottleneck on human evolution, human human technological evolution. >> and our our understanding of what's. actually possible, >> right? >> I agree. And you know, if you're going.

to excite the next generation of. scientists in this country and you're. going to bring economic prosperity to. this country, then we should I wouldn't. say democratize it and put it all out on. the internet. I understand all the. reasons why you might not need to, but. you need to excite the populace. I mean, my laboratory at Stanford for probably. the last 10 years is 90% foreigners.

Not because I don't want to take more. Americans, but because Americans just. don't go into the sciences anymore. They. don't study math. >> You know, they aren't encouraged to. approach us. So, we're importing a lot. of our scientists from overseas. Well, guess what? a good third of them end up. going back and bringing all the. technology that they invented here back. there and creating competitors. Now, maybe that's good on a global scale, you. know, but maybe it's not something that.

we want to encourage uh on a local scale. if we want to maintain our technological. superiority and we're basically governed. by lawyers. China is governed by. engineers. You know, I mean, >> when you see the results in their drone. technology and electric cars and the. things that are coming out of China. recently, >> their pilot bureau is almost entirely. engineers and scientists. >> Ah, interesting. >> Yeah, there's a little article in the in. the Atlantic recently about that. >> That's a giant advantage.

>> Yeah. So, people who are making these, we have lawyers looking for all the. reasons why something should or. shouldn't be done and the liabilities, they're looking at things uh as to. what's possible. When you're looking at. these UAP things that people bring you, what is there one that stands out as. being the most compelling to you, one. event? >> Um, well, both the Council Bluffs and. the Ubatuba event are interesting to me. >> because of the physical material. >> Because of the physical material itself,

I mean, I'm at the end of the day a. physicalist, you know? I mean, I I don't. like all the anecdotes. I mean a. thousand anecdotes make a good story, good campfire. I mean I think there's. statistical value in people seeing the. same thing again and again and and. there's a there's a truth to it but as. you know and I can believe anything I. want to around that and many of the. statements that I'm purported to have. said are around my beliefs as opposed to. when I put on my scientist hat and I try.

to convince another scientist. I can only provide this data and this. evidence and I don't have yet these. materials. Now maybe they exist uh and. maybe you know people like David Grush. will be able to pry them out of the. clammy hands of those who want to keep. it where it is. But give me one piece of. that and I will do wonders with it. >> Yeah. I mean, that's why I'm so excited. about the UAP Disclosure Act if it ends. up becoming law because there will be.

this ability to start to maybe eke some. of this out. And again, it's the reason. why I think this commercial opportunity. is the direction we want to go where we. have a sort of public private. partnership is that the defense budget. in and of itself is a zero- sum game. We're taking money from one program to. give to another. you know, whether. you're taking it from your taxes or. you're taking it from veterans, you. know, insurance, etc., it's a zero- sum. game. Whereas, if you bring the.

investment community in, now you're. bringing in people who are willing to. take a chance and willing to take a. risk, and you're not using the public's. money anymore. M. >> and so um and that excites I mean me as. a the reason why I wanted to go back to. Stanford is because the the. entrepreneurial environment there and. now which is actually almost homegrown. here in Austin uh is really what drives. innovation and so I want to excite that. kind of community and again the soul.

foundation is a place where we can bring. people in and we've got investors who. show up now who are talking to people. about their ideas and what would we do. with this and so you you it almost has. now a self-propelling. uh movement where I don't need to be. standing on a you know wooden box. somewhere in the middle of the park. >> saying you look at this look at this. people are just doing it now there's now. a whole almost a cottage industry of uh.

small groups or formalized groups who. are doing this uh independently now so. it's almost like it's inevitable. So. Skywatcher as an example, you probably. know of the Skywatcher group. >> Yeah, I've heard of it. >> And uh Jake, >> did they just stop operations? Did. something happen? >> No, it's it's strange because people. said, "Oh, we stopped." No, actually it. had been it had been determined from the. beginning that we were going to go from. January until July or August and collect. data. And now we're in the okay what.

does the data mean phase where um we're. uh literally going through the data. looking at the data files and trying to. we're as I said before we're filtering. the data we're looking for the obvious. mistakes. >> uh etc. Um and so uh no they've not. stopped. >> Yeah there was something on Twitter. about the something about equipment I. forget. No. Um, so James Fowler, uh, one. of the guys who brought a lot of his.

equipment and technology to us, decided, uh, that he wanted to basically go off. and, uh, work, uh, in a DoD capacity as. opposed to the research capacity, but. he's still advising us. I was just on a. phone call, a Zoom call with him last. week going over the data files. >> So, explain this Sky Watcher thing to. people because it sounds insane. Well, the idea behind it was that uh there. might be ways to um send a signal and.

get things to show up and. >> James Fowler claimed that he had such a. thing. Um I was at one of the events. where. something showed up. Um it was transient. momentary but indis, you know, indisputable. But it's just like. >> what did it look like? It was just a. silver ball moving quickly through. several frames of a of the um of a video. which was not fast enough frankly to. pick it up. We just saw it move. It went.

that way and then. >> You didn't see it with your naked eye? >> No, I didn't see it with the naked eye. >> Uh which of course is a problem. >> Do they sometimes see things with the. naked eye? >> One guy did. Yeah, >> one guy. >> Oh, I mean. >> so are these things variable in their. appearance? >> I wish I had my I don't have my phone. here. Um, but uh we do have a picture of. one next to a next to the helicopter. about 200 feet away and it's just kind. of a fuzzy white blob uh against a blue. sky. Um, but it was there, you know, and.

it's not a cloud and it's not a balloon. >> You know, it's not discernible as. anything uh obvious, but it was there. and it happened during one of these. events out in the middle of the desert. M. >> uh and so you know so the the idea is. behind Skyatcher is to see if there are. ways to get them to show up and if so in. a reproducible manner and then have the. right kind of simultaneous multi-ensor. capabilities to measure it meaning radar.

IR visual. uh people on the ground. >> what are they sending to get these. things to go what what signal. >> um James has a signal that unfortunately. he won't um I don't know what it is. >> He won't let everybody know what the bat. signal is, >> you know. I mean maybe. Yeah, exactly. I. mean it sounds kind of silly, but I mean. why would you put that out on the. internet? Because you know you might. render it useless. They're like I don't. got to show up. Everybody's Everybody's.

using it now. >> Oh. So you think it's a trick? Like it. tricks them into showing up? >> I don't know. I really don't. >> Don't you think they'd be smarter than. that? Well, that tells you something. maybe about the level of smarts that. might be incorporated into these let's. say dumber machines. >> maybe. Yeah, that was exactly my thought. is like why would you show up when you. know what it is unless there's a reason. you're basically trying to train the. monkeys.

what to do. Maybe you're tricking the. monkeys into sending I I don't know. But. isn't there a group of people that just. go out and they just using their mind? They meditate. Yeah. >> And supposedly they have some success as. well. >> Yeah. There's the C5 uh groups that do. that. And I've never participated in any. of that because I don't I don't know how. to measure it. Um, I'm, you know, I'm. I'm more than willing to believe that. there are technologies capable of.

measuring thoughts at a distance that. might be some super advanced. I don't. believe you have to call it telepathy. and magic. I think that there's, you. know, if such a thing happens that there. is a technology that might be able to. read at a distance, >> right? Well, >> I have no problem with that. >> I I don't have a problem with that. either. I I don't have a problem with. the idea that consciousness. is. kind of vaguely and barely understood. and whatever our.

relationship to the universe itself and. reality itself through consciousness is. it's not fully defined and also it might. evolve just like all of our other. intellectual capabil capabilities. >> right well I mean think of it this way. you know you you and I are interacting. with each other through quantum waves. I. my meat brain sees you as an object, but. yet everything that you are sits in. quantum spacetime down at the plank. level and you're not even mass. You're.

just a series of I mean in some people's. minds vibrating fields and objects. And. so we have sensors that see and hear. each other and think about each other, but our consciousness somehow is. embedded in spaceime. And so who's to. say that there's not signals passing to. and from that are vaguely able to be. picked up by our meat brains that we. don't necessarily appreciate. >> Right. >> Right. So that just because I can't. think at you and you can't hear me. doesn't mean that there aren't perhaps.

brain organizations of some people that. are a little bit better at hearing. the echo than others. Well, which is. also probably the reason why when you go. to the woods and there's no cell phone. signals, the world feels different. >> Yeah. >> Because you're probably experiencing a. bunch of signals that your brain vaguely. interacts with, >> right? >> That you know might not even necessarily. be good for you, right? >> But they're out there and they're a part. of the world that you live in. >> and you just you can't you don't have a. radio, right? So you're not like tuning.

into them. You don't have a cell phone. so you can't just like make calls with. it but you're experiencing it. >> Right. Well, and you know, our. civilization is drowning us in constant. noise. >> Yeah. >> And so maybe, you know, that drowns it. out and that's why meditation is why. people claim that they can interact with. other things. I don't know. >> Yeah. I don't know either. want to I saw. an interview that you did uh where you. were describing the sighting over uh off. the coast of San Diego in 2004 the the.

Nimmits sighting. >> where you said that the amount of power. why don't you describe it so the amount. of power that that thing had to. >> to use to move the way it did. >> right so. >> it's on radar. >> it's on radar so um so these are. actually calculations by Kevin New a. physicist from the University of Albany. um and a published paper. Uh again, just. speculation, but what he basically said. was how much power would it take to. instantaneously accelerate.

uh from 50 ft over the ocean to 50 m. above the earth, whatever the number. was, uh and instantaneously decelerate. So, it's not just the amount of power to. lift something, it's the amount of power. to accelerate and decelerate. instantaneously. And so you can make simple physical. calculations uh of a one-tonon object, let's say, and it's more than the. nuclear output of the United States for. a year. And yet these things seem.

capable of doing that at will. So where. are they getting the energy from? And I. remember asking how a question like this. years ago. We were stepping into a how. put off stepping into an elevator and we. were talking about his ideas about how. these things might move. And I said, "So. they're cheating somehow, aren't they?". And his answer was, "From our point of. view, they're cheating. From their point. of view, they're just using the physics. that we don't understand yet.". >> Um, so where's the energy coming from? What are they doing? And and so that.

might be, as a, for instance, a reason. why you don't want everybody having. access to it. >> Yeah. >> Because any one of those objects is a is. worse than a thermonuclear bomb. You. shoot one of those things at a city and. that's the end of the city. And if. anybody could do it, you know, >> well, maybe that's the the step of human. evolution of the the evolution of our. society and civilization is that AI has. to come into power before we have access. to all this other stuff, right?

>> That we do need an AI government. structure and that we do no longer. require military intervention and all. all the [ __ ] that is the bane of. civilization today. Because if you you. ask the average person today um is do. you envision a world where war doesn't. exist? Most people are saying no. The. vast majority except for a few. delusional hippies. They're going to say. no. Right? But if you ask them, okay, given this super intelligent AI takes. over the world and proves to be.

benevolent and really just wants to. accentuate the life of human beings on. Earth and make it better for everybody, >> then yes. >> Right. Then a 100% yes. Why would it. want war? >> Right. >> Right. So maybe something like that has. to take place before we get to a. situation where Okay, this is how you. really travel. >> Right. Right. >> Okay. Now that you're not going to war. anymore, listen. >> But you can hear about gravity bubbles. >> You can already imagine the negatives.

where people will say, "Oh, well, it's. the it's the. it's the apocalyptic nanny state, >> right? where AI just basically takes. care of you and humans devolve into. something which is why I think. >> a merger of human intellect with this. where it's a synergy as opposed to an. eitheror. >> I don't want to be nanny stated either. >> right. >> I want to use it to explore ideas or. explore pleasure I mean I'm finding.

people want to be hedonistic and you. know participate in virtual. >> parties all day long for all I care I I. don't care. Um, but I think giving. people the option to do whatever it is. that they want to do. It's the most. >> um I don't know what's the it's the most. liberal and conservative way of living. because you're allowed to do what you. want to do. But we're not because we're. living at the behest of so many other.

structures. >> Yeah. Um, last question. What do you. What's your take on the Bob Lazar story? elements of truth um with uh a healthy. dose of. um misinformation that perhaps he was. provided. [Music]. >> I don't think that he's entirely. lying. He seems to know enough about things.

that. the average person wouldn't know. But, you know, I've heard from Eric Davis and. others saying, you know, he's he's a. this, he's a that. I don't know because. you know, it's like that's why there are. great people like Richard Dolan who. who's a, you know, a wonderful writer of. the history of the area or people like. Robert Powell or Michael Swords who. write just the facts, not coming to too. many conclusions. Um,

I don't live in that world. That's it's. it's not my specialty. My specialty is. working with data and analyzing things. and bringing rigorous science to it so. that I can convince another scientist. what is right or what is wrong because I. won't be happy. I mean, I'm pretty sure. of what I know, but I want to validate. that to my colleagues if only to be able. to say, "I told you so.".

>> Right? There's a little bit of human. pettiness in there. you know, >> little bit of pettiness is great. motivation. >> Yeah. But, you know, but but that's I. think again enabling people to live in a. world like that where you can talk about. these ideas without being ridiculed is. really I think the objective of what. science should be and what open-minded. um you know non- theologically dogmatic. approaches should be. It's it's like. accuse a scientist of being a a priest.

and that's the best way to really upset. them. But pointing out that what they're. doing is mimicking dogma and priesthood. is the only way to shame them. >> into doing the right thing. >> Does that make sense? >> It does. It does. Well, listen, man. I'm. glad we finally did this. >> Yes. >> Thank you so much for being here. Thank. you so much for all the research that. you're you're currently involved in and. all the stuff that you've done. And it's. been amazing talking to you. Really.

appreciate it. >> Thank you so much. All right. Bye, everybody. [Music].