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Radio War Nerd EP #244 — Pentagon UFOs, with Matthew Phelan (Patreon)

Published:
2020-08-31 23:49:06
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Matthew Phelan, reporter

Recorded: August 30, 2020

We talk to investigative reporter Matthew Phelan about the so-called Pentagon UFO reports and UFO programs. Normally this story would trigger bad 70s memories in your humble podcasters, but Phelan tells us why this story is so much more significant—and downright interesting.

Links:

"Navy Pilot Who Filmed the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO Speaks: ‘It Wasn’t Behaving by the Normal Laws of Physics,’" by Matthew Phelan, New York magazine.

"Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles" by Kevin Knuth, Dept Physics SUNY, Entropy.

"Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program", New York Times.

"UFOs exist and everyone needs to adjust to that fact", Washington Post.

Read Matthew Phelan's articles, and follow Matthew on Twitter.

Total time: 2:04:13

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Files

Comments

Greg

I realize I am coming at this one a few years late, but this guest doesnt know what he is talking about. In the same sentence he said the tic tac was traveling at sub light speeds and that if it accelerated toward Alpha Centari it would get there in 44 days. Alpha Centauri is 4 Light Years away. Even if accelerated to just under the speed of light it would take 4 years. Nothing goes faster the speed of light, there fore nothing will make the trip in less than 4 years.

Jonathan Sheps

As long as we're reopening this topic: why hasn't it been obvious to everyone reporting on this event that what's being described as "a very fast moving object" is in fact two identical objects, being observed some distance apart at almost the same time by two different observers. The inferred speed is entirely an artefact of the unnecessary assumption that there's only one object. The rapid disappearance of the first object, and sudden appearance of the second, are easily explained if we assume the objects are *balloons*, which can be inflated rapidly, and disappear even more rapidly by being punctured and collapsing out of sight.How did we get to the point where supposedly serious people think "alien technologies" is a more plausible explanation than "stage magic". Particularly since the interviewee here acknowledges the interest of Bigelow Aerospace in this controversy , a company that produces rocket-deployed balloons of the shape and reflectivity of the observed objects. I am reminded of the old programmer's adage that "ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM A RIGGED DEMO"

Some Guy

It has always seemed to me that anytime the air Force starts actively talking about UFOs, it is because they are trying to direct attention away from the latest toys they are testing. Bright lights high in the sky after dusk when it was all about high-altitude balloons. Black triangles when they were testing stealth aircraft. Etc etc. Find a way to exaggerate some salient attribute of whatever you are working on so anyone who reports seeing the real deal gets lumped in with crazies.

Cade Jameson

I would have liked to have heard more about the materials obtained that “we couldn’t make ourselves”—according to the astrophysicist quoted in latest nyt article, and which are apparently being stored by Bigelow and Elizando.

Some Guy

Oh man, I can confirm that Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem is fantastic. The title is extremely apt. Not only does it play on paranoia between the explorers and the alien population, but also on a cold war style frozen conflict among the aliens themselves that has gone on so long that it resembles nothing so much as an interlocking ecosystem of warfare, with measures on countermeasures on countermeasures constantly churning in a perpetual steady state...

mmckay

The navy UFO video was a bird and the appearance of high speed is the parallax view from a plane going almost mach 1.

HarshMalarkey

Brecher and Ames have become one flesh

Jack Firman

Side note.. little known fact Spielberg’s ET was originally titled “Dark Skies” in early drafts the ETs where hostile. Later was decided to go with the friendlier version we all know now in final film. Interesting, decision change that resulted in months of prep lead by Rick Baker’s original designs of aliens. scraped. Then shortly after Carlos Rambaldi took over and still in FX legends dispute the design.. this goes back to a Rambaldi and Baker 1976 Kong dispute. Yeah I’m a FX nerd too. Ha

Bryan Nicholson

I was surprised that no one suggested demonic or angelic activity as an explanation for UFO activity. Certainly seems as plausible as extraterrestrials buzzing Navy jets.

Jackie Jump Jorp

The Sagan sequence on 2-dimensional creatures encountering 3-D intelligences was taken from the Edwin Abbott novella Flatland, which my physicist father tried fruitlessly to get me to read as a lazy, bad-at-math-concepts child. Maybe I'll try to dig it out of my book boxes now that I see that it included a mild critique of Victorian class society, which appeals to my vulgar left sensibilities much more than my "UGH, MATH!" aversions. Sagan's segment in Cosmos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0 Flatland summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

James Hardwidge

flatland is great. really how math should be taught at an early age. theres a funny cg movie made based on the book

Jake Palmer

Is any other country obsessed with UFOs in the same way the USA is? Are there UFO videos and pictures that UFO watchers in other countries go over with a fine tooth comb? (I'm in the UK and never hear anything about this kind of stuff happening here, even with us being so steeped in American culture!)

Ed Gardiner

Thanks for the Blindsight book recommendation. Fantastic hard sci-fi.

Patrick Fitzgerald

Fascinating podcast. RWN's been on roll the past couple months.