Conversation 20 – Airman Pat at Cannon AFB in the 70s

Recorded: 7 June 2023
Released: 30 July 2023
Duration: 54 Minutes 21 Seconds

This is our first anonymous API Conversation, although we are using the real first name of our Witness. A former Air Force F111 technician tells us his story about a UFO encounter captured on RADAR at Cannon Air Force base in New Mexico in the mid 1970s, and what followed after that.

If you served with Airman Pat at Cannon AFB in the mid 1970s, or if you were in Clovis, NM at that time, we’d like to hear your side of the story.

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 Unidentified Science 10 – Images as Evidence

There are two things we hear a lot about photographs and videos of UFOs:

  1. It is so easy to fake a photo or video now that they can’t serve as proof of anything.
  2. If UFOs are real, why aren’t there more compelling, bulletproof photos and videos?

It would seem that these two questions are at odds, and to some extent I think they are. However, let me just deal with the first one now – are photos and videos useless?

Proof, Evidence and Truth

Let’s start with a distinction I think I have made before, but needs to be reasserted from time to time – that is there is an important difference between proof and evidence. I’m not splitting hairs here.

Proof is something we basically never get in the real world. In the abstract realms of mathematics and logic, we can prove a proposition, and if you have ever taken an abstract mathematics course, you know that proofs can be very hard to come by. Outside of mathematics, proof is basically not available, nor is it necessary, or even desirable. Some doubt, some willingness to question, is healthy. So, we should never look to a photo or video as “proof” of anything.

What we do ask for is evidence, and the more the merrier. As Christopher Hitchens once said, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

If you have more than one line of evidence, that is far more convincing than just one, and if you have multiple lines of  evidence that all converge on the same consistent set of ideas without serious contradiction, then we can, in time, reach a level that we call “truth.” Let me take the liberty of defining truth operationally  as some assertion (or better yet, a system of consistent assertions) about the world that you can act upon and think in terms of with confidence.  We tend to take our truths for granted, but they require generations of careful, hard work and emerge from many years of bitter controversy. It is also the case that some truths may one day have to make way for stronger, more powerful truths.

But let’s not throw the word “Evidence” around too carelessly. A video or photo isn’t evidence, unless we specify meaningfully what we think it is evidence of.  Actually, without a hypothesis in play, images are just a collection of numbers.

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Conversation 19 – Dr. Joan R. Bird

Recorded: May 5, 2022
Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes

Marsha Barnhart talks to Dr. Joan Bird, author of the book Montana UFOs and Extraterrestrials: Extraordinary Stories of Documented Sightings and Encounters.

Dr. Bird is a Zoologist who specialized in animal behavior. She moved to Montana in 1973 to pursue graduate studies in zoology at the University of Montana, and in 1983 she completed her Ph.D. on inter-island variation in West Indian finches. Dr. Bird worked as a conservation biologist for the Montana Environmental Information Center, The Nature Conservancy, and Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. She has also worked as a fire lookout in both Washington and Montana. Joan freelanced as a nature interpretation writer and has written numerous articles for scientific and conservation publications. Actively involved in women’s empowerment, she was a columnist for Crone Magazine. A lifelong student of unexplained phenomena and long-time member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, she has worked as a community educator and change agent. 

When Joan was a teenager, her mother had a near death experience. This engendered a lifelong interest in exploring paranormal and esoteric subjects. And, although steeped in scientific materialism from her academic training, Dr. Bird eventually began to study and attempt to understand the inexplicable.

In this episode of API Conversations, Marsha and Dr. Bird discuss the contents of her book, Montana UFOs and Extraterrestrials, and delve into a host of related philosophies, concepts and theories regarding UFO’s, the ET Hypothesis, the Nature of Reality, the possibility of Past Lives and the value of Consciousness Studies. 

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API Case Files Episode 18 – Orbs a’ Plenty

Released: 26 July 2021
Duration: 42 minutes, 41 seconds

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This episode of API Case Files covers three recent cases.

We report on a daylight sighting from the Isle of Man (Case 21-023) detailing how two men pursued three orbs until the objects disappeared. This encounter took place May 27th, 2021 and is especially provocative because a day before someone else on the Island of Man saw and reported a single orb just like what our Witness saw.

Two days before the Isle of Man sighting, a Witness in Brooklyn, NY shot footage of three self-illuminated orbs in a triangle configuration cruising up the East River towards Manhattan. Marsha interviewed the Witness in that case.

Marsha also details a case from central Ohio of a mother and son who had a close encounter that so startled their senses they became sick to their stomachs for several hours afterwards. 

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Episode 17 – I Know What I Remember

Released: 7 June 2021

Duration: 59 minutes, 30 seconds

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Central Casting Saucer Spotted Outside Louisville; a Colorado Campout Overhead Light Show; and a Terrifying Idaho Orb Encounter

Several really good cases to cover in this episode! A mother and daughter saw a right-out-of-central-casting flying saucer maneuvering over them in the early evening of December 11, 2020. They were in a large urban area just outside Louisville. And we hear from a Colorado camper who got more than he bargained for under the stars the night of May 13, 2021: a mass of seemingly connected white lights cavorting in the sky for several hours as he and a companion took in the spectacle. A Witness in Caldwell, Idaho on May 17, 2021 recorded an orb flying along that seemingly changed directions to fly towards him. It stopped momentarily over his house as he took cover under an awning in fear of what it might do next! 

Also in this podcast, Paul Carr presents another in his series of Unidentified Science episodes. He covers the issues surrounding fallible human recall.

We also introduce you to our newest API Investigator, Roger Draper. He hails from the San Francisco area and, with a background in law enforcement, investigation, and his DOD experience, he’s a real bonus addition to the team! 

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Episode 16 – Lights, Camera, Action!

Released: 11 November 2020

Duration: 60 minutes

Lots of cases to discuss!

The API team is joined by two new members, Molly and Dan.

Paul goes into detail on a dazzling Ohio sighting with terrific night vision camera footage, and talks about a recently reported 2014 close encounter experienced by a woman in San Francisco.

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API Conversation 18 – Curt Collins

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Recorded: 25 March 2020
Released: 26 March 2020
Duration: 69 minutes, 36 seconds

A conversation with UFO blogger and researcher Curt Collins of the blog Blue Blurry Lines. Recently, together with Roger Glassel, Curt has published research into the complicated and ethically thorny relationship between the government’s AAWSAP program, Bigelow Aerospace, and MUFON.

Links:

Transcript of this Conversation

Blue Blurry Lines
Tim McMillan: Inside the Pentagon’s Secret UFO Program
The Pentagon UFO Program’s Secret Partner
Breaking the Silence: AATIP’s Secret Partner Speaks
Keith Basterfield: AATIP or AAWSA
Paul Dean: The Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Application Program

Conversation with Simone Mendez
The Carpenter Affair

Tyler Rogoway: Tom DeLonge’s Origin Story For To The Stars Academy Describes A Government UFO Info Operation
Bigelow Aerospace Lays off All Employees

The Cash-Landrum UFO Case Document Collection

The Roswell Slides Research Group

Host script
Report Your UFO sighting
Contact API

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr
Music: DJ Spooky

Conversation 17 – Eric Wojciechowski, part 2

Recorded: 24 January2020

Released: 2 February 2020

Duration: 51 minutes, 27 seconds

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Following up on Part 1, Paul Carr and Eric Wojciechowski talk about cyborgs, ageing, self-driving cars, uncanny valleys, narrow vs. general AI, Elon Musk, Shazam, drug dealers, Henry Rollins in Iran, Charlie Hebdo, future fiction plans, Tolkien, virtual conferences, surprising endings to novels, and much more.

Links

Part 1 of this Conversation

Eric’s Amazon Page

Freedom Cocktail

Eric on Twitter

Jesus and Mo

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Credits

Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: DJ Spooky, George Hrab

API Conversation #16 – Eric Wojciechowski, Part 1

Recorded: 24 January 2020

Released: 25 January 2020

Duration: 52 minutes, 45 seconds

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Part 1 of Paul Carr’s lightly edited conversation with author Eric Wojciechowski. We discuss virtual UFO conferences, Eric’s early fascination with the Ancient Astronaut theories of Zecharia Sitchin, his difficult choices in writing Chasing Disclosure, sleep paralysis and false memories, a shadow person experience, artificial intelligence, and much more.

Eric Wojciechowski lives with his wife and two children in Livonia, Michigan. Usually writing essays and articles in politics, religion, pseudoscience and Woo-Woo. Lover of all things Fortean. Some non-fiction work can be seen at Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptic magazine, American Atheists magazine and Free Inquiry magazine. Also writes on politics at the blog, Freedom Cocktail.

Links:

Part 2 of this Conversation

Eric’s Amazon Page

Freedom Cocktail

Eric on Twitter

Elizabeth Loftus on Mick West’s podcast

Credits:

Host and Producer: Paul Carr

Music: DJ Spooky