Notes below on the SOL Conference, by Jon K.

(November 20, 2023)

The material presented was complex, with many graphics and photos, and sometimes rapidly delivered. These notes are only a very rough approximation to the content of the presentations.

“The Juan1” has posted his impressions of SOL here. https://twitter.com/planethunter56

I’ve quoted some of TheJuan’s tweets below.

StillChillTrill posted a very good, but brief, set of notes about the SOL Symposium

https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/17zkn5s/stillchilltrill_goes_to_stanford/

***

The SOL conference was held at Stanford University on November 17th and 18^th (2023). Co-hosts were Garry Nolan, Ph.D. and Peter Skafish, Ph.D.

There were 230 people in the audience. Notables there (but not presenting) included Daniel Sheehan (the attorney, not the physicist), Whitley Strieber, Col. John Alexander, and Ross Coulthart (journalist).

Presenters:

Avi Loeb, Ph.D. - The New Frontier of Interstellar Objects

Professor Loeb received a PhD in plasma physics at age 24 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1986) and was subsequently a long-term member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1988-1993), where he started to work in theoretical astrophysics. In 1993 he moved to Harvard University where he was tenured three years later.  He is now the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and former chair of the department. 

He also holds a visiting professorship at the Weizmann Institute of Science and a Senior Professorship by special appointment in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University. Loeb has authored over 1000 research articles and 8 books. For full publications and biographies, visit his Professional Site 

Loeb: We need a partner in space just as we need a partner in life. The key to this talk is the word “interstellar.” Loeb referred to a January 8, 2014 object which hit the Earth, about one-half watermelon in size. Was going very very fast. That was the first interstellar object. The second object hit on October 19, 2017. Name given was Oumuamua (pronounced Oh-mua-mua). The third object was Borisov, There were no anomalies in Borisov, These were the first three interstellar objects. They might have been Dyson spheres or a ____ sail.

Loeb has the Galileo project going, with a team. They're taking pictures of the sky using extremely advanced cameras. They call it “Pigeon Run”. They used the Delek IR, Amos, Skywatch, Pac-Man, Spectre and Beacon. They are one month into phase one. They use satellite data to look down on earth. They have published eight papers.

From June 14th through June 28th Avi Loeb made an ocean visit to the South Pacific. He wrote 43 diary reports. They were looking for pieces of Oumuamua. Refers to Siraj and Loeb 2019 article. It was hard to get the paper published, but the DoD got involved and helped. Oumuamua had unusual characteristics. So they went to Manus Island, Papua New Guinea which they thought is close to an area of the ocean that might contain pieces of Oumuamua. They were able to use some government equipment. They raised $1.5 million for the boat, “Silver Star”. A sled  trailed a 3-mile cable on the ocean floor to pick up millimeter size particles, a mile deep over a 7 mile area. The sled tended to kite (rise off the ocean bottom.) They used magnets and they got microscopic particles. They did find meteor droplets. Spherules. 50 of them.

They crossed the area 26 times. Charles Hoskinson (a crypto CEO) was there. They now have 800 spheres thanks to the work of a grad student, who went through the samples again. There were spheres inside spheres. There were isotopes, diverging from the standard solar composition of meteors. They called it BeLau. Associated with an explosion. Some claimed this was just coal ash which they had found and Loeb says there's no way it was coal ash. Why would people even pretend to do that? There are pretenders online. The origins of BeLau could be either natural or made by non-human intelligence.

This was a very risky operation. Many reasons it might have failed, but it did succeed! Loeb is going to make another expedition to the Pacific Ocean.

Some principles they follow. As with FIFA (soccer club organization), look at it observations but make a decision by using the camera.

Second principle is to use scientific evidence.

Third is to keep your eyes on the ball not on the audience.

Fourth, unfriend pro-science pretenders on social media.

Fifth  don't mud wrestle.

Six, raise science to new heights where the oxygen level is low and pretenders will fall off. Seventh, life is self-fulfilling. (If you think failure, you will get it.)

Beatrice Villarroel, Ph.D., Multiple Transients and the Search for ET Probes.

PhD degree in astronomy, Uppsala University. Title of PhD thesis: “Active Galactic Nuclei in galaxy surveys: empirical paths to the fiery hearts of cosmic beasts”.

Transients are things that are seen briefly and then disappear. She wants to set up the Exo-Probe multiple transients project. These are fast bursts or pulses. Optical SETI was being used. ET probes. Signatures.

Villarroel gave a history about life in the Milky Way. There are  200 to 300 billion stars in the Milky Way. 22% of the stars in the Milky Way are the size of our sun. There are 40 billion potential earths in the Milky Way; that is planets of appropriate size in the habitable zone!

After study of radio signals for 60 years (SETI), there are no candidates! Laser communications too are an optical desert.

Stars appear and then disappear from plates.  She has written articles on this. Used Mount Palomar observatory. There are many mysterious flashes lasting between seconds and minutes that appear on astronomers’ astronomical plates. There were nine simultaneous transients from April 12, 1950. What causes these? Is it issues with the instruments? Five possible issues, but they're most unlikely. What about secret nuclear tests? Reflections from non-human satellites?

What about predicted signatures? Star-like emotion deficits. The implications. Could it be gravitational lensing? There is a paper on three stars which disappeared. On July 19, 1952 there were saucers over DC. Was that a coincidence? She wonders.

So she has started the Exo-Probe project. We can send probes into space. Makes arguments for a solar system SETI. Wants to set up a global network of telescopes. Started this past August. Goal is to bring down an ET probe to Earth. She mentions Marcy, Hill and Gertz as people doing this. Goes through the process of setting it up. And the breakthrough listening team. Cost is $100 million.

Kevin Knuth, Ph.D. - The Physics of UAP, with Some Clues about Their Detection, Monitoring, and Engineering

Kevin H. Knuth is an associate professor of physics at the University at Albany (SUNY). Knuth conducts research in information physics, foundations of quantum mechanics, and Bayesian analysis with applications towards various problems in physics. He also conducts research into UFOs.

He serves as vice president of UAPx, a nonprofit organization that aims to conduct field research about UAP,[9] and is a research affiliate of The Galileo Project for the systematic scientific search for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts at Harvard University.

"I am skeptical” - citing skeptics but he is also skeptical of scientists who claim to be skeptical but have not done the research. So what are UAP? They are class of phenomena. Recommended strategy. Find five observables. Such as positive lift, amazing acceleration, hypersonic speed (5,000 G's in falling so fast (he is referring to the TicTac. But no sonic boom. P = 1100 GW in power. 10 times the total nuclear power output of the United States. A clear anomaly.

Hermann Oberth, the physicist. There are measurements of 42,000 mph - from 1954 when radar detected something going at 19 km per second. Refers to the Minot Air Force Base case where a speed of 9,000 miles per hour was recorded. Refers to Japan Airlines Flight 1628 where there were 10K G's involved and 269,000 mph in 3  of 11 jumps that were made by the giant UFO. (Joe McMoneagle remote viewed this UFO. See book by Tunde Atunrase.)

Knuth observes that at light speed, or close to it, for travelers it would be only 3 days or so to get to Proxima Centauri, the closest star. It would be many years for people back home but for the traveler, only 3 days.

Luminosity is something that hasn't been measured much and it's exceptional in UFOs. 2,500-30,000 megawatts. Why use such powerful lights? What purpose could that serve?

Electrical and magnetic effects are found when engines fail from UFOs. Rodeghier cited 268 cases, of which 27 had self-starting after the UFO left. Knuth goes over the science of a car engine and how that could happen. He says that it shows that in 10% of the cases it might restart, so there's a valid theory as to why a few but not all cars may restart after UFOs leave.

Talked about transmedium travel in the water. In 1987 there was the Southland encounter off New Zealand. A boat was followed by USO which was 800 ft. long. Speed was from 1,492 mph to 2980 mph. Refers to Sean David Barrett. The ship lost power from the USO. Acceleration was 4.5 G. This huge UFO went UNDER the Southland. The sonar still worked.

Knuth shows a table of USO reports from 1879 to 1910. We don't have good satellite coverage of oceans on Earth or in the solar system. Can we lure UFOs? Maybe with nuclear device? There's a patent pending for a handheld nuclear reactor with lithium, by Matt Syzdagis.

Panel - Question and answer what is your vision of the universe? Loeb says be humble. Question what is the state of the art of sonar? Knuth says he doesn't know.

Question is it easier or harder to present your papers now? Answer: There is still some resistance. Loeb was approached by intelligence agencies. He shared data with AARO. The government never expressed any issues with his work. Got positive feedback from them.

Question: What is the predicted occurrence of transients? Villarroel: Well in the whole sky it's very rare in an area 10 to the minus 9 square cm.

Question: Can you pump energy into a solid? Knuth: We don't know. We don't understand motion! (Uses the German word Zitterbewegung or “Trembling-Along-The-Way” - for electrons behavior. There is instantaneous speed. Quantum mechanical effects must be at the speed of light.

Question:  How to reach the public? What do we need? Knuth: Land on the White House lawn. Loeb: Or government could release a UFO to the public. Villarroel: We could use the star plates and show that there's something weird going on.

Question: Where to get overview on this topic? The public doesn't know. A book was suggested, title was UFOs Detection (?)

Garry Nolan, Ph.D. The Material Science of UAP

“We are stardust.” Refers to Joshua Lederberg, pioneered exobiology. Viking program 1969.

Leonard Hertzenberg was Gary's mentor. They used the Viking scientists. Flow cytometry. Devised a scheme which generated $95 billion for Stanford. Stanley Cohen of Cohen-Boyer patents. Vernon Oi - humanized antibodies. Chain reaction of opportunities, all in one department! I started out with the question, Are we alone? That question led to all the above developments.

How to analyze materials. There is physical evidence and chemical analysis. Puthoff and Vallee  rescued me from the rabbit hole of Ufology. Mentions Colm Kelleher.

Big Lake Park, Council Bluffs Iowa case. Dec 17, 1977. Material dropped off a UFO. There's a photo of metal on the ground. Ruled out various explanations. Published a paper. Took five pieces of the material. The isotope ratios were different from one to the other in the same sample. How and why? It was an industrial process. There was incomplete mixing of components. Could it have been done at nanoscale? Shows machine that can do atomic imaging. Atomic probe technology. They're only two such machines. They can show 3D placement of atoms. The data showed no signs of technology for this sample. Why?

Next case Ubatuba, Approximately 1957 in Brazil. Used mass spectrometer. One sample had normal isotope ratios, the other was way off. Why? Isotopes can work better as catalysts in iron. Plants use this also. Sample had very pure composition of silicon. The two samples were very close and there were two chains of custody.

Third case is Socorro, New Mexico. Lonnie Zamora, the police officer. Jacques Vallee had a piece from that crash. It was zinc and aluminum, distributed differently. It was pure aluminum attached to zinc. A clear sign of an industrial process. Why? There are many other kinds of atomic energy analysis.

Launching a new project to be called the Standard Repository. It will do standardized testing. It will be organized under a public umbrella option. It will be funded by gifts or grants.

Jacques Vallee, Ph.D. The UFO Phenomenon: A Genuine Scientific Problem.

(A long loud standing ovation - the only one during the conference.)

Vallee notes he is back on “The Farm” (Stanford). Did plasma research, solar corona work, pulsars and UFOs in the early 1970s. Mentions President Bill Clinton - Jack Gibbons, top science advisor from 1993 to 1995. The sun and energy. Laurance Rockefeller's initiative to remove the UFO stigma. Gibbons could summarize the situation.

Here’s a story. An older man tires and goes home. On the way he sees an unusual object. It's a frog which wears a crown. He picks up the frog which starts talking. It says, “I'm a princess. If you kiss me I will turn into a princess and we will live happily after. The older man says,  “At my age I'd rather have a talking frog." (Appears this story is supposed to explain why there's not been UFO disclosure.)

Shows a photo of UFO pioneers: Sturrock, Haines, Vallee, et al.

Only 2% of the data in our database is valid after analysis. However! If one were analyzing subs in the North Atlantic during WW2, if 2% were German subs, that's a problem! This is a lesson that Vallee learned from an old submariner. So we should do that for UFOs! 2% is a lot.

The third topic he will speak about is alchemy. Madame Curie laboriously extracted a tiny bit of radioactive material from a lot of pitchblende (a useless material). Just a very tiny bit but that led to a Nobel prize.

There are many unreported cases. We’re here at Stanford so he needs to show at least one graph, so here it is. Shows a graph of levels of strangeness with two distributions.

Category 1 is lights in the sky they make it into the files.

Category 2 Better defined, e.g. spheres. We don't know the curve of reports; maybe three out of ten.

Category 3 stranger ones. These are reported.

Category 4 stranger.  Less reported.

Category 5 scarier with zero reports. Creatures, weird forms of weird communication.

Category 6 and 7. Abductions, totally weird UFOs, etc. Almost no reports and hypnosis won't get you there.

Shows two overlapping curves. Y axis: reports out of 10 observations. X axis: Type of case (category 1 to 7). The weirder the observations and experiences are, the less they get reported.

AI was there in 1969. The latest AI faces the public however. We applied AI at the level of the data to clean up the data - back then. He wants the focus to be on level 6 and 7. The strangest cases don't really reach the authorities.

We know about France and the USA but we lack a global perspective.

Tic-Tac. These are not photos; FLIR shows heat response, Raytheon said. “We didn't sell you a UFO detector!” Countries need to open their files!

Question: How would a person new begin UFO science now?

Nolan says - do material science. Vallee says to use AI. In 1983 the Air Force files existed. There were 183 hypotheses. Back then AI was only a companion. Now we have advanced AI.

Question on Socorro. Leslie Kean asks, How big was the piece? Gary: It was small. Vallee: Hynek was there. They took a car apart.

Question: On Blue border in Vallee’s Forbidden Science 5: Referring to Hal Puthoff and John Alexander. Vallee says, I briefed the Senate and they can talk about it.

Question: What's your model of time? Vallee various effects are observed and there are various theories of time. The reports are crazy!

Question: Did you share data with Eric Davis? Nolan:  No, I haven't shared Eric Davis though he's a good friend.

Diana Walsh Pasulka, Ph.D. - Rewriting the Myth of Prometheus: Innovation Through Off-Planet Research, Data, and Environments.

Pasulka was principal investigator for the Teaching American History Grant which ran for three years from 2009. She also acts as a consultant for movies about the Catholic and religious supernatural (such as The Conjuring). She was Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington from 2015 until 2019, where she is currently professor of religious studies.

Her research focuses on religion and technology. Her books include Heaven Can Wait, which discusses purgatory's location and materiality, and American Cosmic, which explores belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial life and how it has changed traditional religions.

Pasulka went to a crash retrieval site with Nolan they were both blindfolded.

She says, We have to avoid academic siloing. Especially with regard to the UAP.

Prometheus. Humans non-human intelligence and technology transfer. The Titans created humans from clay. Humans then made fire. Prometheus was punished.

First period: Hynek & McDonald - model is you could be a scientist and a ufologist.

Second: John Mack - model is you could do academic UFO research

Third:  Dr. Whitley (presenting at SOL Conference). You can be an academic and a UFO researcher.

Refers to Mary Shelly's book Frankenstein (1818), called “The Modern Prometheus.” The scientist dies at the North Pole. Frankenstein not meant to be a monster.

Refers to the famous Indian mathematician Ramanujan. Claimed he got his information from the goddess Lakshmi. She presented the equations to him.

In the US Russian rocket/space program. Jack Parsons (US) and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky  (Russia) described the source of the info as “angelic presences.” Current scientists also talk about how they created something via NHI (Non-human Intelligence).

First category. For 70 years UFO data was classified. Government and visible programs acquired tech info through alien means. New Mexico crash scenes. Socorro. Pasulka went with Garry Nolan blindfold there. (He said it was one of the more memorable experiences in his life. Remnants were left there. Reverse engineered. A “donation site” by the UFOs.

Second category: Public ufology. James McDonald, Hynek, Vallee, Passport to Magonia (1968).

Third: Academic - John Mack. But also subjective experiences. “Life beyond Earth”, a book.

Suggests that NHI would be post-biological (that is, AI). This was 20 years ago.

Now quantum computing with AI. In alternate dimensions. Idea that “Knowledge seeks expansion” - put forward by Tyler Nordgren.

Fourth: interdisciplinary UAP work. I went to the Vatican, correlated with UFO hotspots. How describe this trend/situation (?). Is it emergent?? She thinks that’s a good word.

I had trouble following Pasulka’s presentation. Here is TheJuan’s brief take:

In today's day 1 of the SOL conference, Dr. Diana Pasulka discussed the convergence of 4 UAP research traditions that are becoming clearer (and emerging) in the current push for disclosure:

- First, the "invisibles" tradition of UAP study, like Dr. J. Allen Hynek

- Second, ufology as the public scholarship/study of UAP, like the late Dr. James McDonald

- Third, the academic study of UAP, like the late Dr. John Mack

- Fourth, the study of UAP as an emergent phenomenon

The fourth one on this list is still being defined, although she hinted at the term "interdisciplinary." Given the physical and social scientists in attendance, that term makes sense.

Peter Skafish, Ph.D. - Conceptualizing Nonhuman Intelligence: Anthropomorphism and Ontology. Is cohosting the SOL conference.

From SOL site: Dr. Peter Skafish is a sociocultural anthropologist who works between his discipline and philosophy on how ideas, cosmologies, and translation shape the diversity of human thought and experience. He is currently engaged in research that employs anthropological perspectives on pluralism, cosmology, modernity and religion to anticipate how the sort of nonhuman beings that we imagine to design UAP might think, and in what ways this thinking is likely to be both commensurate and incommensurate with our own. Dr. Skafish is also developing in his advisory research for Sol broad recommendations for a genuinely democratic, “whole of society” approach to solving the legal, political, and environmental problems raised by UAP.

Dr. Skafish has a PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and has held faculty and research positions in the United States, France, Canada, and Germany, including at universities such as UC Berkeley, the Collège de France, McGill University, and the Bauhaus-University, Weimar. He also has been the recipient of funding from such organizations as the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Humanities, and the Fondation Fyssen. He is the author of the book Rough Metaphysics: The Speculative Thought and Mediumship of Jane Roberts, which was judged “absolutely original” for “its vast expansion of the scope and possibility of the discipline of anthropology,” and he is currently a completing a book on US government data on UAP. He is also the coeditor of the volume Comparative Metaphysics: Ontology after Anthropology.

Talking about the Schumer initiative. Brought NHI into the public awareness. We use human categories to try to understand NHI. Materialism is our framework. We are anthropomorphizing .

Is it illusion now we see UFOs through our material lenses? Do we have right concepts to understand NHI? The concept of technology may prevent us from understanding UAP. Could be noetic entities, quasi-Tech, quasi-biological. What is technology? We think “Cognition must be AI.” Unwarranted analogies. Can't make suitable comparisons. Their origin may be from a realm of consciousness or noetic. “We are inferior.”- may not be true.

Our political frames for understanding what they are and are doing maybe limiting. We have legal assumptions. We have fictional ideas about them.

What to do instead? Max Weber - “modernity” defines things a certain way. Other ways to organize society exist. Animist ontologies, for example. Culture and politics in terms of self-conscious. Nature per se as we think of it is not theirs.

Their practices in regard to animals and plants. Animism has its own authenticity. It has its own ontology.

Thought experiment. Sophisticated consciousness. Modes in which NHI could be embodied. How about a UFO where the pilot is part of the craft. It’s possible NHI is a collective body.

Question: Peter, do you have an imaginative method? Skafish: No, I don’t have one.

Question: Pushing back re: Pasulka’s categories. Pasulka: It’s a new form of knowledge production - It’s emergent.

Question: There is resistance to (study of) close encounters. So there are no grants. Can we create a set of standards that academics would relate to. Answer: Peter says it requires a cosmological shift. Pasulka says she only saw joint work after she had done it with Tyler.

Question: Michael (dialectics guy) asked about ‘modernity” and Animism. He doesn't buy the modernity - animism distinction. Hegel introduced spirit into “Modernity”. You don’t mention that part of the modern tradition. Skafish: I’m a pluralist. Hegel did damage. No one here wants to talk about Hegel. I have respect for William James.

Question: What about native storytellers? Sixkiller Clark’s collection of stories has been ignored. Experiences have evolved with more encounters have evolved with the experiences.

Question: Pasulka refers to the idea that “information wants to expand”. Is the next substrate AI? Pasulka says in her book Cosmic and Evolution. Mentions Simone - quantum mechanics AI. Yes Simone says AI is the next form of intelligence. And stock post biological universe .

Question: Lack of disclosure - civilization will collapse - is used. Abrahamic traditions. Do religions put us on a good path? Pasulka: Religions are already on board with UFOs. We're not having a zombie apocalypse.

Panel: UFOs and Government, moderated by Leslie Kean, with Hal Puthoff and Larry Maguire.

Larry Maguire (from Wiki) MP (born June 1, 1949) is a politician and activist farmer in Manitoba, Canada. Formerly a Progressive Conservative MLA in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in a by-election on November 25, 2013. He is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada and sits on the House Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities and the House Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Hal Puthoff spoke about the history of UFOs. Project Sign, Blue Book. He went to a 2004 private conference in Washington, D.C. It was noted that crash retrievals have reportedly been done by Russia, China and the US. He and others were given forms to fill out on what they thought the impact of disclosure would be on the stock market, religions, politics, etc. Rate it from -9 to +9. He was in a subgroup and his and all the subgroups ended up with a minus appraisal. That is, the negatives would outweigh the positive, even for those who favored disclosure. The consensus seemed to be that there was too much coming out at the same time to handle. So the recommendation was in the negative - don’t disclose.

Puthoff went on to discuss later developments in government. E.g. Senators Reed, Inouye, and Stevens were part of the Gang of 8 (the top Congressional people who have access to information in a SCIF. They told the DIA to start AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program), which led to AATIP (Advance Aerospace Threat Identification Program) because other countries are doing UAP research and they may leap ahead of us. Hal and others were told there are 12 potential threat areas, which shows some knowledge of crashes. Things are so compartmentalized research won’t happen, unless change is made. Plan B was to have the US govt give us the stuff! Plan C was to go to experts in the world.

This last led to Robert Bigelow sponsored survey, with Hal asking for papers from experts in fields. They would be paid. So 38 papers were published by authors not told about the relation of their paper to UFOs. They were published as DIRDs (Defense Intelligence Research Document?)

That’s where we are at.  Dave Grusch has said we have craft and Jim Lecatski has said we’ve been inside it. I take what both say “to the bank”. Turns to the Schumer amendment. This will create some problems; e.g. corporations may not comply.

Larry Maguire: It’s a non-partisan issue in Canada. Sky Canada Project has started. The govt departments in Canada are not being so cooperative. The party in power is not on board. Maguire is in the minority party. He is the only one in govt in Canada who has pushed the subject.

Question and Answer:

Who gets clearances in Canada? The Defense Dept assigns them. Can you say more? No.

How can we help Canada? Maguire; We can invite knowledgeable people to government meetings, like people who are with SOL.

Can there be cooperation between countries? Puthoff: Yes. Take electronics. It was not classified and we leaped way ahead - an argument for transparency.

Is there hope for the future re government? Puthoff: Thinks so. Political groups will have more info about UAP. A new age is upon us. The Schumer amendment. Maguire: There is an awakening in Canada. The first Congressional Hearing got our attention.

Did you have prior knowledge of the craft that Lecatski referred to in 2011. Puthoff: Lecatski is reliable. His statement is all I can say. I had no knowledge before that and Lecatski would not say more, even though we have known each other and worked together for years. Colm Kelleher does not know either. Hal mentions George Hathaway - Canada collaboration.

Do you believe Grusch’s claims? Puthoff: I’ve known those folks and have known him for some time. I take his statements to the bank as well. Maguire: Grusch had an impact on Canada as well.

Regarding the letter Maguire wrote in which he told the Minister of Defence to look into UAP and the implication of working with the US on it.

Timothy Gallaudet, Ph.D. - The U.S. Government’s UAP Apathy is Another Case of Its Massively Misplaced Priorities

Timothy Cole Gallaudet^[1] is an American oceanographer who is a retired Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. Gallaudet previously served as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere within the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this function, he fulfilled the role of Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Acting Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) until February 24, 2019.^[2] He was the longest-tenured Acting Administrator of NOAA in the organization's history at the time he was replaced, but was subsequently surpassed by his successor, Neil Jacobs. Currently, he is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC., and host of The American Blue Economy Podcast.^[3]

Gallaudet also has become prominent in the UFO Community as he claims to have seen footage of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) while on active duty in the U.S. Navy. He is listed as a member of the Advisory Board of Americans for Safe Aerospace which describes itself as a "military pilot-led nonprofit organization focused on UAP."^[4] He is a research affiliate with the Galileo Project that searched for evidence of extraterrestrial technological artifacts.

Gallaudet and astronomer Avi Loeb, the head of the Galileo Project, wrote a joint op-ed piece in The Hill calling for philanthropic funding of UAP research in academia and the private sector.^[5]

Gallaudet: Shows slide of great variety of creatures in the sea. NHI (Non-human intelligence) may be very diverse. Cf. The Galopagos Island. He led NOAA. Ocean reserves examined by the govt. Has a family (shows photo). Had a UFO-related experience: Norfolk, Ryan Graves, TicTac. Tim G was Chief Meteorologist for the Navy. Knows of numerous mid-air near collisions. After TicTac, at meetings, no one talked about it! It was a failure of leadership. He supports pilot Ryan Graves and his organization and has joined Avi Loeb’s project.

Undersea vehicles. Dozens of reports of such, in several oceans. No data so far. Victor Vescovo - dive in deep trenches. A civilian. Did a project with Tim G, found an anomaly. Tim G. is on the Ocean Studies Board. Wants to make it a national research project.

He was invited to White House. Did so. Trump in office. The White House defunded his govt organization by $1 billion a year - despite the amount specified in the bill. But Congress did make up the difference.

Misplaced priorities. Biden, Navy and DoD plans. They are focused on climate change but we need to plan to combat China - pollution.

The ocean is undersampled. Plan to explore the ocean. Interdisciplinary group. SWARM and SWAG by name. Legislation is put together.

There is technology to provide earthquake warnings, but the government (agency) is not open to implementing it. Europe has INSPIRE. US geological org won’t listen.

On UAP, Representative Luna approached Tim G. Mentions AARO, Sean Kirkpatrick. Says the White House and NASA do not want disclosure.

Garry Nolan wants to create a federated group for this research. SOL. A new paradigm (Daniel Sheehan). David Graves’ organization ASA. Nolan wants donations for SOL. Mentions the lab staff and camera people who are making the conference work.

Policy now is non-disclosure. To change it 1. Schumer Amendment - get it done. 2. Get the White House involved. Mentions a national strategy for STEM. 3. The next generation will lead to a new culture. “New Epoch in Human History”

Question and Answer:  When will we have in-focus images? Tim G: In a year or two.

Why has there not been disclosure? Tim G: Mainly issue of national security - is the reason given.

You mentioned an undersea feature? What is it? Tim G: It’s knoll or rock which has been displaced. Very odd appearance, anomalous.

How accurate are our undersea sensors? Tim G: It varies. The UN is very weak on this. It’s an “epistemological black hole”. We lack info to reach conclusions.

Jairus Victor Grove, Ph.D. (streamed presentation) - Crowded Skies: Atmospheric and Orbital Threat Reduction in an Age of Uncertainty.

Professor and director of the Hawai’i Research Center for Futures Studies.

My work so far has centered on the ecology and future of global warfare. I am interested in the ways war continues to expand, bringing an ever greater collection of participants and technologies into the gravitational pull of violent conflict. I am also interested in various approaches to global relations such as systems theory, cybernetics, and complexity theory, as well as the role new media play in altering the interface with global relations.

http://jairusgrove.com/

Note: He spoke very fast. I missed some of his points.

Will offer a framework to think about UAP, which is critical now. Policy questions.

1. UAP are an intermittent phenomenon. They move quickly. This creates a problem. 2. There is lack of trust in our institutions and in international relations (Russia, China, US, etc).

1. International cooperation. There are provocative air encounters. US and China. With Russia in Alaska. Chinese subs. There is the danger of asymmetrical competition. Also true in outer space. All domains are at risk and they belong to the world (not to nations). Refers to a treaty on outer space.
2. There is a commercial info sharing gap. A lack of civilian networks. Was that a plane or a UAP?
3. Proliferation issue. There has been a huge increase in air vehicles, especially drones. Security is tightening up.
4. Outer space. Space junk. Small objects at high velocity are cluttering up space. It could get so bad that we can’t send craft up there; it would be too risky.

Alternative futures:

1. “The future does not exist”. Because rules change. I go with David Hume. Our empirical data is past data. It’s not from the future. How do we know it will continue this way? Is there a rule or a “law” (of nature) involved?
2. ?
3. Probable vs. Possible futures. Possible futures can create difficult issues.
4. Certainty is more dangerous than uncertainty.

Paradigms:

1. We capture a UAP.
2. Something is disclosed.
3. Nothing (different) is happening.
4. We are agnostic about UAP but seek collaboration (to explore). Mentions David Mitione (sp?), a thinker. Start with low stakes on which to collaborate.

Alternative futures:

1. Collapsed future. E.g. a UAP event might start a war.
2. Disciplined futures. Partial collapse.
3. Transformational future. Rule change. Asymmetrical disclosure. One country discloses, e.g. Or UAP self-disclosure.
4. Nothing changes - no disclosure.

What can we do? It’s a difficult situation. Cooperation may not happen. Corporations will do their own thing. We lack a framework for cooperation. All the paradigms are problematic!

We could take a functional approach as a start. Focus on safety in commerce, for example. Try information sharing.

Karl Nell - The Schumer Amendment and Controlled Disclosure

Karl E. Nell, a recently retired Army Colonel and current aerospace executive who was the Army’s liaison for the UAP Task Force from 2021 to 2022 and worked with Grusch there, characterizes Grusch as “beyond reproach.”

Col. Karl Nell, an Army Reserve officer, has commanded at every grade level held and is currently Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Africa Command. He has more than 27 years of technology and organizational leadership in top-tier defense firms where he most recently served as vice president and general manager.

Refers to the UFO Disclosure Act of 2023. The Schumer amendment. Provides historical background. Senators Gillibrand, Rubio, Heinrich and Young. Two are part of the Gang of 8.

Goals:

1) centralize data. In NARA - national archives.

2. There is a presumption of disclosure.
3. Make it enforceable.
4. FOIA is inadequate. Takes too much resources from govt and doesn’t provide enough for FOIA seekers.
5. Some UAP records are exempt from disclosure. Cites the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
6. Need to restore oversight to UAP data by Executive and Legislative branches.
7. Critical for open scientific R&D and in the public interest.

Scope: Refers to UFO, not TNO (Temporarily Non-attributed Objects).

Six features of UAP:

1. Extreme acceleration.
2. Hypersonic velocity.
3. Transmedium (air and underwater)
4. Positive lift without apparent means to do so.
5. Multispectral signature control.
6. Invasive physical and/or biological effects.

Example of TNO: natural weather (4 categories). Explainables.

NARA will own the records (which they will get from various govt bodies). A 9-member board URRB will be created and last till Sep 2030. The Senate and House to oversea the board via the HSGA and the HCOA. The URRB will make recommendations. There will be eminent domain over the TNO and NHI evidence. Govt can confiscate data from corporations or private citizens. Went over the pros and cons of eminent domain.

Congress will appropriate $20 million to URRB for Fiscal Year 2024. The President has the ultimate decision on what to disclose or do. Unpublished Material (?) must be provided in 14 days. All of it disclosed within 25 years.

Gave lists of terms of reference. NHI, “prosaic”, TNO. The URRB positions:

1. Executive Director. 2. Sociologist. 3. Biochemist. 4. National Security officer. 5. Foreign services official. 6. Scientist or engineer. 7. Professional historian. 8. Constitutional Law scholar. 9. ? They will be given the necessary clearances.

Reasons for non-disclosure: 1. National security. 2. there is no plan to cover all that might happen. 3. Disruption of society. 4. There is already a covert agreement with NHI. 5. To cover for past misdeeds by government. 6. Organizational intransigence.

There is a need for a UAP plan. Oversight. Disclosure and science. Lines of effort.

Note: From this point on there were repeats in the presentations about issues such as problems with disclosure, national security.

Jonathan Berte - The European Union and Disclosure: Government, Industry, and UAP Research

https://www.jonathanberte.com/

Chairman & co-founder - Robovision. Jonathan Berte is the mastermind and the main driving force behind Robovision. With a background in applied physics and specialised in image processing, he built a strong reputation for developing custom solutions for machine vision and robotics in the first years of Robovision’s existence. Robovision is now a turnkey AI solution provider with a deep-learning platform. Our software is what it is today in large part thanks to Jonathan’s philosophy of building applications the “hard way.” Today, he actively supports the CEO - Thomas Van den Driessche and the Robovision team as his focus will be on maximising his impact on important opportunities. He will be forging strategic partnerships, evangelising vision AI and bringing Robovision to new markets across the globe. As a founder, he is continuously looking beyond the short-term horizon and monitoring early-stage ideas in our market.

Berte: Physical AI. Seeks health solutions. Electron microscope. Drones over nuclear sites. International disclosure. Open Source AI - vs. Meta. Friends and Foes of AI. Distrust of government institutions. Impact on technology and economy. UAP reporting trends. Solutions to energy issues. “Energy poverty” in Europe. Huge influence of big oil and gas. An International Institute is needed.

Talk with Christopher Mellon. (Had been in France, little time to prepare. Read his remarks.)

Cofounder of TTSA. Wiki:  in a March 2022 opinion piece published by "The Hill" Mellon stated "I am approaching the UAP topic as a member of two serious groups of scientific researchers, the Galileo Project and the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). Both of these UAP research organizations have gathered able groups of scientists who are seeking to advance our collective understanding of UAP anomalies. Those efforts now appear to be hindered by new guidance that moves the classification yardsticks merely because some U.S. government officials dislike oversight and are uncomfortable sharing information."[10] Mellon continued, "since DOD isn’t claiming retroactively that the “Gimbal,” “Go Fast” or “FLIR1” videos themselves are or ever should have been classified, or that their release has damaged national security, by what authority are they now claiming the need or right to classify the same sorts of information going forward?"[10] Mellon worked with Leslie Kean in a UFO organization and is a shareholder and former advisor for the Blink 182 punk rocker Tom DeLonge's To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences.[11][12] According to the company’s website, Mellon's title was "national security affairs advisor".[13] Mellon assisted in production and worked with former Pentagon Director of AATIP, Luis Elizondo as a cast member for the cable television network History that distributes the shows series Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation.[13]”

“Christopher Karl Mellon (born October 2, 1957),[1] is a private equity investor,[2] former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and later for Security and Information Operations. He formerly served as the Staff Director of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is a member of the influential Mellon family out of the Greater Pittsburgh area. Mellon has lobbied for U.S. government investigations into UFO/UAP.[3]”

“Christopher Mellon was born to the Mellon family. He is the son of Karl Negley Mellon and Anne Stokes Bright, and the great-grandson of Gulf Oil co-founder William Larimer Mellon. His great-great-grandfather, Thomas Mellon, founded Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh.[4][5] He received a B.A. in economics from Colby College in 1980 and a master's degree from Yale University in international relations, with a concentration in finance and management, in 1984.”

Christopher Mellon, If the Government Has UFO Crash Materials, It’s Time to Reveal Them (6/3/2023)

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/03/ufo-crash-materials-intelligence-00100077

Revisits national security risks and related issues. Mellon’s role. Oct 2019. Met with Eric Davis, to D.C. Sen. Gillibrand and Rep. Tim Burchett are very pro-disclosure. AARO has a conflict of interest - govt authorities above it vs. the public interest. Mellon differs with Sean Kirkpatrick of AARO re: “no credible evidence.”

Precedents: A. Sputnik. US lagged behind. Became a political issue. Led to collaborative exploration of space (Russia and US). Can we do the same with UAP? Mellon is optimistic. The shock may be beneficial as would the later developments. Wrote an article for Politico on this theme. B. Advent of superior tech can be a catastrophe - e.g. for indigenous people when Europeans came. Might be for us too.

Mentions Ray Dalio. Rolls Royce Fund (?). “Principles…change world order”. Problems: US debt. Rising foreign power (China). S. China Sea tensions. President Shi may be moving to a North Korean mode. The January 6 attack. “Government is broken”. U.S. military is stretched to its limits. Dalio: Change, when it comes, may be very sudden.  Dr. Horari (Harary?). Huge threats. Existential crisis. May be worse than 1917 or 1941. A common enemy might help us - alien civilizations. We need a shock - as a civilization. Pres. Reagan’s remarks at UN and elsewhere about how if UFOs visitors were here, how we might view are differences as very minor. We need an outside threat. We need the truth! But must be done carefully!

A Fireside Conversation with Charles McCullough III

1. Charles McCullough, III is an American intelligence officer and attorney who served as the first Inspector General of the United States Intelligence Community.

“David Grusch is represented by Charles McCullough III, senior partner of the Compass Rose Legal Group in Washington and the original Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2011. At that time, McCullough reported directly to the then-Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, and oversaw intelligence officers responsible for audits, inspections, and investigations.”

McCullough: There are 17 or 18 intel agencies. NSA Act of 1947 governs them. Worked for executive branch and also for the legislative branch. Did investigations and audits. Was IG for Intelligence Committee for Boston bombing. DHS was on the team. McCullough was raised not to trust the government. So took job as IC IG. Goes over the routines of the work. It tends to be a bipartisan and bicameral issue. Cites past CIA abuses. DNI’s job is to make it all work together. The SSCI and HSCI - Senate and House committees. The Schumer amendment is well written and- WOW! Will it pass? Maybe it will. But many battles to come. How get more transparency? Having SOL itself is mind blowing. Foundation too will help (?). What is the ideal playout? Hard to answer. We often say in Intelligence, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

From TheJuan:

These were some key takeaways from David Grusch's legal council Charles McCollough's "fireside" chat with Peter Skafish that took place at SOL, day 2...

- McCullough [a former IC IG] is also the legal council for the SOL Foundation

- Reasons that McCullough took on the Grusch case: (1) There is a clear oversight issue element with it, (2) "Everyone has a right to be heard"

- He said that not everyone will like this statement: "Being a whistleblower doesn't mean talking to the media."

- There is a clear issue with USG over-classification of data.

- An IC phrase that he said multiple times, that pertains to the Grusch complaint: "You don’t know what you don’t know."

- "You can’t have government and a country if everything becomes declassified. Some form of secrecy is needed."

- Regarding the Schumer UAP legislation: It is extremely well written (by Karl Nell); it will work, but will it pass? I am not sure. There should be contingency plans in place.

- In his experience, just because a legislation passes similar to the Schumer UAP act, that doesn't mean that parties/agencies affected by it will actually abide by it.

- The potential passing of the Schumer bill will be just the start. Many legal battles will be fought after in order to actually get the UAP reverse engineering tech out into the open.

- "If it [Schumer UAP bill] doesn’t pass, don’t get depressed. There are other people in the [SOL] Foundation pushing disclosure forward via different means."

Iya Whitley, Ph.D. - Observation is Data: Trusting and Learning from Pilots

Dr Iya Whiteley, Principal Research Associate Director of the Centre for Space Medicine

Dept of Space & Climate Physics.

Dr. Iya Whiteley by profession - a Space Psychologist, training developer for Astronauts with a background in Clinical Psychology and Cognitive Engineering.

Dr Iya Whiteley | Call 4 Inner Space Explorers. Motivational speaker. 💫 Space+Aviation Psychologist. 👩‍🚀 Astronaut Training Designer. 📺 BBC Expert Presenter. 👼 Founder, Cosmic Baby Academy. 🏆 Champion Skydiver. ✈ Pilot 👩🏼 Mum.

https://www.instagram.com/driyawhiteley/

Book: Toolkit for a Space Psychologist: to support astronauts in exploration missions to the Moon and Mars Paperback – June 19, 2018. by Dr Iya Whiteley (Author), Dr Olga Bogatyreva (Author), & 1 more

Cites the opening of the movie 2001. Bowman encounters an object. People can’t articulate their experience. The light flashes seen by Apollo 15. 66% were spots and stars. 25% were streaks. 8% were clouds. Phosphenes.

Whiteley has worked with astronauts. They could not communicate their experiences. They had to be isolated when they came back, for health/safety. Families were lost, divorces. One astronaut became a priest. Most went quiet.

Synesthesia.  1 in 5K or 1 in 100K have it. 4% of people, perhaps. 150 types of synesthesia. Babies have it, but lose it. Intention has an effect. Cites Radin experiment with RNG. RetroPK  can affect RNG. Inattentional blindness. The gorilla experiment.

Observation is data. Aviation psychology and cognitive engineering. Worked with Boeing, Emirates, is an aviation psychologist. Working with workload and glass cockpit display design. Pilots didn’t talk about these issues. At Wright-Patterson research lab worked on how to improve performance. Pilots have unique cognition. So many variables to integrate. Situational awareness. 3D movement. Can act fast via intuition and training.

Human senses. More than 5. Cites kinesthesia, nociception. There is inner data and outer data. Cites Nolan, Vallee and Mellon.

The deep movie Solaris. Russian 1972. Communication with an NHI ocean which makes a dead human come alive. Love.

Need to empower pilots.

Paul Thigpen, Ph.D. - They Are All God’s Children: Insights from Catholic Theology on UAP and Nonhuman Intelligence

https://www.catholic.com/profile/paul-thigpen

“Dr. Thigpen earned a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale University (1977) and an M.A. (1993) and Ph.D. (1995) in Historical Theology from Emory University, where he was awarded the George W. Woodruff Fellowship. He has served on the faculties of Missouri State University (Springfield), The College of Saint Thomas More (Fort Worth, Texas), and Saint Leo University (Savannah, Georgia).”

“A best-selling author and award-winning journalist, Dr. Thigpen has published thirty-five books and more than five hundred journal and magazine articles in more than forty religious and secular periodicals for both scholarly and popular audiences. His work has been circulated worldwide and translated into twelve languages.”

https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/?speaker=paul-thigpen

“Paul Thigpen, Author, is the editor of TAN Books and was appointed as a lay representative on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Advisory Council, speaking frequently at conferences and scholarly gatherings in the U.S and abroad. He earned a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Emory University. A best-selling author, Dr. Thigpen has published forty-two books, including Manual for Spiritual Warfare and Saints Who Battled Satan: Seventeen Holy Warriors Who Can Teach You How to Fight the Good Fight and Vanquish Your Ancient Enemy, and more than five hundred articles for both scholarly and popular audiences. His work has been translated into twelve languages.”

Angels are NHI, as are demons. Catholic faith not undermined by NHI reality. He is now doing historical theology. Religious people have discussed these entities for centuries.

Catholic vision of the cosmos. God has created everything. Is immanent too. Two aspects: material body and immortal soul. Our species is fallen. Refers to a book which surveys NHIs.

Mentions Padre Pio and others who have had experiences. Aristotle’s cosmos. “Animated stars”. St. Thomas Aquinas. Nicholas of Cusa: earth not the center of the universe. This was pre-Copernicus. Nicholas became a legate and held other offices. Apparently was not persecuted for his views. He was valued. Types of NHI - are they all fallen? Padre Pio said there were non-fallen NHI. Mysteries in Catholicism.

Talk with Jeff Kripal, Ph.D. - “To Shoot Down Souls”: Some Paradoxical Thoughts on the UFO Phenomenon from a Historian of Religions

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He is the author of Comparing Religions (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (Chicago, 2011); Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (Chicago, 2010); Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago, 2007); The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (Chicago, 2007); Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (Chicago, 2001); and Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna (Chicago, 1995). He has also co-edited volumes with: Sudhir Kakar, on the history, science, psychology, and analysis of psychical experiences, Seriously Strange: Thinking Anew about Psychical Experiences (Viking, 2012); Wouter Hanegraaff on eroticism and esotericism, Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism (University of Amsterdam Press, 2008); Glenn W. Shuck on the history of Esalen and the American counterculture, On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture (Indiana, 2005); Rachel Fell McDermott on a popular Hindu goddess, Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West (California, 2003); G. William Barnard on the ethical critique of mystical traditions, Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism (Seven Bridges, 2002); and T.G. Vaidyanathan of Bangalore, India, on the dialogue between psychoanalysis and Hinduism, Vishnu on Freud’s Desk: A Reader in Psychoanalysis and Hinduism (Oxford, 1999). His present areas of writing and research include the articulation of a New Comparativism within the study of religion that will put “the impossible” back on the table again, a robust and even conversation between the sciences and the humanities, and the mapping of an emergent mythology or “Super Story” within paranormal communities and individual visionaries.

Kripal is an Esalen board member.

1. The huge scale of UAP. No one nation or religion can fathom UAP, which may be a positive. The US role. Cites immigrants who are “aliens”. People were abducted and put on ships and sent to America. Sound familiar? Mentions Matthew Roberts - Roosevelt ship - Love (?). UAP doesn’t recognize our surface selves. (?)
2. Our technology advances permit us to sense/see them now, where we couldn’t before. They show interest in our nuclear facilities. Don’t define reality as binary. There are robotic moves by aliens (some/all aliens may be robots). AI gives us a new way to view UAP. NDE: biomedical advances allow us to bring back more people from death and they report these experiences.
3. Religion-history. Is the elephant in the room. After all, Greek history and others are replete with beings coming down from the sky and screwing humans. Religious history indicates that NHI are non-commensurable. But the public doesn’t accept this. There is evidence that bodies levitate and bilocate and know the future - religious history displays that. Levitation and UFOs may be related. Book: “They Flew”. Could aliens be future humans? Could be. Enlightening experiences. Apophatic experiences. We have a subject-object paradigm. But religion leads to many competing models. Example is the elephant and five blind men. Reality may be pluralistic. Is nature itself conditioned by culture? It’s long known that UFOs are related to psychic experiences. There is no separation of mind and matter.

How would religions respond to disclosure? Some would adapt, some not, some may not survive. Kripal holds more to a negative view of what the result will be.

1. Some religions demonize UAP. E.g. some branches of Christianity.
2. Psychoactive molecules. Altered states. Plants and animal spirits. Many such states are not reported. Western history is awful re: psychedelic distortion. Arthur C. Clarke’s scifi novel, Childhood’s End.

(End of Kripal’s talk)

From Wikipedia: Childhood’s end, Plot summary

In the late 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union are competing to launch the first spacecraft into orbit when alien spaceships suddenly position themselves above Earth's principal cities. After one week, the aliens announce they are assuming supervision of international affairs, to prevent humanity's extinction. They become known as the Overlords. In general, they let humans go on conducting their affairs in their own way, although some humans are suspicious of the Overlords' benign intent, as they never allow themselves to be seen.

The Overlord Karellen, the "Supervisor for Earth," periodically meets with Rikki Stormgren, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Karellen tells Stormgren that the Overlords will reveal themselves in 50 years, when humanity will have become used to their presence. When the Overlords finally reveal their appearance, they resemble the traditional Christian folk images of demons, with cloven hooves, leathery wings, horns, and barbed tails. Humankind enters a golden age of prosperity at the expense of creativity.

The Overlords are interested in psychic research, which humans suppose is part of their anthropological study. Rupert Boyce, a prolific book collector on the subject, allows one Overlord, Rashaverak, to study these books at his home. To impress his friends with Rashaverak's presence, Boyce holds a party, during which he makes use of a Ouija board. Jan Rodricks, an astrophysicist and Rupert's brother-in-law, asks the identity of the Overlords' home star. The Ouija board reveals a number which Jan recognizes as a star-catalog number and learns that it is consistent with the direction in which Overlord supply ships appear and disappear. Jan stows away on an Overlord supply ship and travels 40 light years to their home planet.

Well over a century after the Overlords' arrival, human children, beginning with the Greggsons', begin to display clairvoyance and telekinetic powers. Karellen reveals the Overlords' purpose: they serve the Overmind, a vast cosmic intelligence, as a kind of "bridge species", fostering other races' eventual union with it.

As Rashaverak explains, the time of humanity as a race composed of single individuals with a concrete identity is coming to an end. The children's minds reach into each other and merge into a single vast group consciousness. For the transformed children's safety, they are segregated on a continent of their own. No more human children are born and many parents die or commit suicide. When Jan Rodricks returns to Earth, he finds an unexpectedly altered planet. Humanity has effectively become extinct and he is now the last man alive.

Some Overlords remain on Earth to study the children from a safe distance. When the evolved children mentally alter the Moon's rotation and make other planetary manipulations, it becomes too dangerous to remain. The departing Overlords offer to take Rodricks with them, but he chooses to stay to witness Earth's end and transmit a report of what he sees.

Guest speaker (remote) - David Grusch

Notes below are from TheJuan1 on X:

https://twitter.com/planethunter56/status/1726065504799121495

SOL concluded a bit ago with a short but very poignant presentation by David Grusch, who joined via Zoom. His key comments, verbatim:

- Imagine a future where we no longer need to speculate about our place in the cosmos.

- The release of info on NHI has the potential to unite humanity, regardless of the ontological shock that would ensue.

- [Disclosure] will involve the releasing of info in a controlled and planned manner.

- This is a new era of spiritual awakening.

- We are in a paradigm shift with the power in our hands to transform our world.

- We are working towards a more enlightened and interconnected world.

TheJuan

SOL... Day 1. Amazing. Some key points...

 - Dr. Avi Loeb: "If the gov has a UFO in their possession, just show us"... with multiple UFO insiders in the crowd.

- Dr. Kevin Knuth said that we should not only be watching our oceans for UAP activity, but also other potential planetary oceans within our own solar system (like Europa - implied).

- Dr. Garry Nolan  discussed his analysis of some 1964 Socorro UFO fragments, given to him by Jacques Vallée, who was in the audience.

- Dr. Jacques Vallée discussed the seven levels of UAP strangeness, and how the key to deciphering the phenomenon lies in levels 5,6,7.

- Dr. Diana Pasulka discussed the myth of Prometheus and how it connects to four distinct UAP research methodologies (which is the foundation of a new paper she has authored).

- Dr. Hal Puthoff, in convo with Leslie Kean said that we can take two recent UFO insider statements "to the bank":

1) Jim Lacatski's statement about a UFO that the government retrieved and that we went inside it, (2) All of Grusch's claims.

- And lastly, via Dr. Nolan: The Stardust Repository... an initiative to standardize the testing of anomalous materials under a federation of labs, organized under a public umbrella, and funded by gifts & grants. And, make the data freely available.