Lex Fridman PodcastGarry Nolan: UFOs and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #262
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,000 words- 0:00 – 0:43
Introduction
- GNGarry Nolan
... how would you, as a higher intelligence, represent yourself to a lesser intelligence?
- LFLex Fridman
Do you think they saw what they say they saw?
- GNGarry Nolan
It didn't just start showing up in 1947.
- LFLex Fridman
How hard do you think it is for aliens to communicate with humans?
- GNGarry Nolan
What do we believe in? We believe in technology. So you show yourself as a form of technology. Right? But the common thread is you're not alone and there's something else here with you and there's something that's, as you said, watching you.
- LFLex Fridman
You are a professor at Stanford studying the biology of the human organism at the level of individual cells. So let me ask first the big, ridiculous philosophical
- 0:43 – 6:36
Biology
- LFLex Fridman
question. What is the most beautiful or fascinating aspect of human biology at the level of the cell to you?
- GNGarry Nolan
The micromachines and the nanomachines that proteins make and become, that to me is the most interesting. The fact that you have this basically dynamic computer within every cell that's constantly processing its environment and at the heart of it is DNA, which is a dynamic machine, a dynamic computation process. People think of the DNA as a linear code. It's codes within codes within codes and it is the... Actually the epigenetic state that's doing this amazing processing. I mean if you ever wanted to believe in God, just look inside the cell.
- LFLex Fridman
So DNA is both information and computer?
- GNGarry Nolan
Exactly.
- LFLex Fridman
How did that computer come about? A big... Continuing on the philosophical question, the... Is this both scientific and philosophical? How did life originate on Earth do you think? How did this at every level? So the very first step and the fascinating complex computer that is DNA, that is multicellular organism, and then maybe the fascinating, uh, complex computer that is the human mind.
- GNGarry Nolan
Well, I think you have to take just one more step back to the complex computer that is the universe, right? All of the- the so-called particles or the waves that people think the universe is made of and, uh, appears, to me at least, to be a computational process and embedded in that is biology, right? So all the atoms of a protein, et cetera, sit in that computational matrix. From my point of view, it's computing something, it's computing towards something. It was created, in some ways, if you wanna believe in God, and I don't know that I do, but if you wanna believe in something, uh, the universe was created or at least enabled to allow for life to form.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- GNGarry Nolan
And so the DNA, uh, if you ask where does DNA come from and you can go all the way back to Richard Dawkins and, uh, the selfish gene hypotheses. The way I look at DNA though is it is not a moment in time, it assumes the context of the body and the environment in which it's going to live in. So if you- if you wanna ask a question of where and how does information get stored, DNA, although it's only three billion base pairs long, contains more information than I think the entire computational memory resources of our current technology. Because who and what you are is both what you were as an egg all the way through to the day you die and it embodies all the different cell types and organs in your body. Uh, and so it's a computational, uh, reservoir of information and expectation that you will become. So actually I would sort of turn it around a different way and say, if you wanted to create the best memory storage system possible, you could reverse engineer what a human is and create a DNA memory system that is not just the linear version but is also everything that it could become.
- LFLex Fridman
When we're talking about DNA, we're talking about Earth and the environment creating DNA, so this... You're- you're talking about trying to come up with a optimal computer for this particular environment.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
Um, so y- if you reverse engineer that computer, uh, what do you mean by considering all the possible things it could become?
- GNGarry Nolan
So who you are today, right? So three billion bits of information does not explain Lex Fridman.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
Doesn't explain me, right? But e- the DNA embodies the expectation of the environment in which you will live-
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- GNGarry Nolan
... and grow and become. So all the information that is you, right? Is actually not only embedded in the DNA but it's embedded in the context of the world in which you grow into and develop, right? But so all that information though is es- is packed in the expectation of what the DNA expects to see.
- LFLex Fridman
Interesting. So like some of the information, is that accurate to say stored outside the body?
- GNGarry Nolan
Exactly, yeah. The information is stored outside because there's a context of expectation. Isn't that interesting?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, to linger on this point, if we were to run Earth over again a million times, how many different versions of this type of computer would we get?
- GNGarry Nolan
I think it would be different each time. I mean if you assume there's no such thing as fate, right? And it's not all pre-programmed, you know, and that there is some sort of let's say variation or randomness at the beginning, uh, you would get as many different versions of life as you could imagine. And I don't think it would all be unless there's something built into the, you know, into the substrate of the universe. It wouldn't always be left-handed proteins, right?
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) But I wonder what the flap of a butterfly wing what, uh, effects it has because-... it's possible that it, this system is really good at finding the efficient answer and maybe the efficient answer is, uh, the, is, there's only a small finite set of them for this particular environment.
- GNGarry Nolan
Exactly, exactly. That's the, kind of in a way, the anthropomorphic universe of the multiverse expectations, right, that, you know, there's probably a zillion other kinds of universes out there if you believe in multiverse theory. Uh, we only live in the ones where the rules are such that life like ours can exist.
- LFLex Fridman
So
- 6:36 – 10:40
Alien civilizations
- LFLex Fridman
using that logic, how many alien civilizations do you think are out there? There's- there's- there's, like, trillions of environments-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... AKA planets, uh, or maybe you can think even bigger than planets. How many life-like organisms do you think are, uh, out there thriving and maybe how many do you think are long gone but were once here?
- GNGarry Nolan
I think, well, enumerable. Uh, I think in terms of-
- LFLex Fridman
So greater than zero.
- GNGarry Nolan
... much greater than zero. I mean, I would just be surprised. What a waste, right, of all that space just for us if we're never gonna get there. Um, that would be my first, uh, way to think about it. But second, I mean, uh, I remember when I was about seven or eight years old, and I would love if any of your listeners could find this National Geographic. Uh, I remember opening, uh, the page of the National Geographic, I was about, again, seven to ten years old, and it was sort of a current picture of the universe. It was around probably 1968, 1969. And I just remember looking at it and thinking, "What kinds of empires have risen and fallen across that space-"
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
"... uh, that we'll never know about? And wouldn't... isn't that sad that we know nothing about something so grand?" Uh, and so I've always been a reader of science fiction because I like the creative ideas of what people come up with, and I especially like science fiction writers that base it in good science, but base it also in evolution. That if you evolve a civilization from something life-like, right, some sort of biology, its assumptions about the universe will come from, uh, the environment in which it grew up. So for instance, Larry Niven is a great writer, uh, and he imagines different kinds of civilizations. In some cases, what happens if, uh, evolu- what happens if intelligence evolved from a herd animal, right? Would you lead from behind?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right? Would you be, uh, you know, in his case, one of them were the, the so-called puppeteers and to them, the moral imperative is cowardice. You put other people forward to run the risk for you, right? And so he writes entire books around that premise. There's another guy, uh, Brin, David Brin is his name, and he writes the, uh, so-called, um, Uplift Universe books. And in those, he takes different, uh, intelligences, each from a different evolutionary background, and then he posits a civilization based around where and what they came from.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
And so, uh, to me, I mean, that's- that's just fun, but I mean, back to your original question is how many are there? I think as- as- as many stars as we can see. Now, how many are currently there? I don't know. I mean, that's the whole- that's the whole question of, you know, how long can a l- a civilization last before it runs out of steam? In you, for instance, does it just get bored or does it transcend to something else or does it say, "I've seen enough and I'm done?"
- LFLex Fridman
What does running out of steam look like? It could be destroy itself or get bored.
- GNGarry Nolan
You know, we said... Or we've- we've done everything we can and they just decide to stop. I don't know. I just don't know.
- LFLex Fridman
It's the Elon Musk worry that we stop reproducing or we slow down the reproduction rate to where, uh, the population can go to zero.
- GNGarry Nolan
Can go to zero and- and we can't... and we collapse. I mean, so the only way to get around that is, uh, perhaps create enough machines with AI to take care of us.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) What could possibly go wrong?
- 10:40 – 47:40
UFO encounters
- LFLex Fridman
- GNGarry Nolan
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
You've talked to people that, uh, told stories of UFO encounters.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
What is the most fascinating to you about the stories of these UFO encounters that, uh, that you've heard that people have told you?
- GNGarry Nolan
The similarity of them. Uh, the uniformity of the- of the stories. Now, I- I just wanna say up front, a lot of people think that when I speculate, I believe something.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- GNGarry Nolan
That's not true, right? Speculation is just creativity. Speculation is the beginning of hypothesis. None of what I hear in terms of the anecdotes do I necessarily believe are they true, but I still find 'em fascinating to listen to because at some level, they're still raw data and you have to listen. And once you start to hear the same story again and again, then you have to say, "Well, there might be something to it." I mean, maybe it's some kind of a Jungian, uh, background in the human mind and human consciousness that creates these stories again and again and it's coming out of the DNA, it's coming out of that pre-programmed something. And Jung talked quite a bit about this kind of thing, uh, the collective unconscious. But actually one of the most interesting ones I find is this constant, uh, message...... that you're not taking care of your world. And this came long before climate change, it came long before, uh, many kinds of, you know, let's say, current day memes, uh, around, uh, you know, taking care of our planet, uh, pollution, et cetera. And so, you know, for instance, perhaps the best example of this, the one that I find the most fascinating, is a story out of Zimbabwe. Uh, 50 or 60 children one afternoon in, uh, Zimbabwe. It's a- it was a, a well-educated group of white and Black children, uh, who at lunchtime, in the playground, saw a craft. Uh, and they saw little men. And they all ran into the teachers and they told the same story and they drew the same pictures. And the message several of them got was, "You are not taking care of your planet." And it got v- you know, there's actually a movie coming out, uh, on this, uh, episode and 30 years later now, the people who were there, the children who've now grown up, say, "It- it happened to us." Now, did it happen? Was it some sort of hallucination or was it a- an imposed hallucination by something? Was it material? I- I don't know. But these kids were seven to 10 years old, you see them on video. Seven to 10 year olds can't lie like that. And so, uh, you know, whether it's real or not, I don't know, but I find that fascinating data, and again, it's th- it's these unconnected stories of individuals with the same s- with the same story, that is worthy of further inquiry.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, so here we are as humans with limited cognitive capacities trying to make sense of the world, trying to understand what is real and not. We have this DNA that somehow, in complex ways, is interacting with the environment, and then we get these, um, uh, novel ideas-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... that come from the populace, and then they make us wonder about what it all, uh, means, and so how to interpret it. I- if you think from an alien perspective, how would you communicate with other life-like organisms? You perhaps have to find in-points on this interaction between the- the DNA and its manifestations in terms of the- the- th- the human mind and the- how it interacts with the environment. So get some kind of, "All right, what is this DNA? What is this environment? I have to get in somehow." (laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
To like interact with it, to get- to perturb the system to where these little ants, human-like ants get like excited and figure-
- GNGarry Nolan
And see something.
- LFLex Fridman
... stuff out. Yeah, yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
And then- and then somehow steer them, uh, first of all for investigative purposes to understand like, oftentimes to understand a system you have to perturb it.
- GNGarry Nolan
Exactly, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Like poke at it.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Get- do they get excited or not? And then the- the- the other way is you want to, if you worry about them, you can steer in one direction or another.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And this kind of idea th- that we're not taking c- care of our world, um, that's interesting. I mean, that's comforting, that's hopeful because that means the greater intelligence, which is what I would hope, would want to take care of us.
- GNGarry Nolan
Like we want to take care of the gorillas in the national parks in Africa.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right?
- LFLex Fridman
But we don't want to take care of cockroaches, so there's a line we draw.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
So you ha- have to hope that... (laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
W- right now we're a bunch of angry monkeys and, you know, maybe whatever these intelligences are, are also keeping an eye on us. You know, that you don't want a bunch of, you know, you don't want the- the angry monkey troop stomping around the local galactic arm.
- 47:40 – 54:57
Atacama skeleton
- LFLex Fridman
Steven Greer, uh, claimed that a skeleton discovered in Atacama region of Chile might be an alien. You reached out to him and, uh, took on the task of proving or disproving that with the rigor of science. The result is a paper titled Whole genome sequencing of Atacama skeleton shows novel mutations linked with dysplasia. Can you tell this full story?
- GNGarry Nolan
The story was, as you put it right there, correct. Reached out, got a sample of the body, did the DNA sequencing, then worked with a team of, uh, two other Stanford scientists and, uh, Roche Sequencing group.... Roche Diagnostics, and probably a total team of about 11 or so people. Um, and as is, as is standard in these kinds of things, the professors actually don't do the work. (laughs) The students do the work and figured out the answer, uh, and then we helped them put together the story. Uh, and the story was simply that, uh, it was human, a hundred percent. I went into it thinking it was originally a monkey of some sort. Um, I got kind of excited a few months into the process thinking, "Well, what happens if it is an alien?" Right?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Can you, uh, describe some of the characteristics of the skeleton that make it unique and interesting?
- GNGarry Nolan
Primarily, it had dysmorphias of the, of the brain. Um, and so the first thing I did actually when I got pictures of it, I took it to a local expert at Stanford, uh, and, uh, he was, um, on the paper. And, uh, he- he was the world expert in pediatric bone dysmorphias. Th- he literally wrote the book-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
... and, on this. 'Cause that's what you do, you go to an expert when it's outside of your field of, of interest. And he said, "Well, I haven't seen this particular collection of mutations before, uh, or this, uh, this physiology before, but here's what I think it might be." Um, and he said, "But based on the size of the, of the thing and the bone density, it would appear to be like six or seven years old." Now again, that's the, that's the thing where I, I think the lay public doesn't understand or takes a speculation like that and turns it into a fact. No one ever said that it was that age. We only said that the bones made it look like it was that age.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
But then we went back and looked for, uh, genetic explanations of why things might look the way they did. And if you, again, read the paper, it's very carefully caveated to say that these mutations might result in this. But what we did find was, an- an unexpectedly large number of mutations associated with bone growth-
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
... in this individual. And it was just a bad roll of the dice, right? You roll the dice enough times with enough people born every year, and some of them will roll the wrong dice all at once. So, the sad part about it was individuals in the UFO community who wanted to think that there was some sort of conspiracy around it, right? That somebody had somehow convinced all of my students, uh, to lie.
- LFLex Fridman
Dang.
- GNGarry Nolan
I mean, come on. You know, I would lose my, I would lose my job, first of all, uh, and they would all be, uh, you know, in trouble forever.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. But also it's just projecting malevolence onto people that doesn't, I don't think exists in normal populous and especially doesn't exist in the scientific community.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
The kind of people that go into science, I mean, this is what bothers me with the current distrust of science, is they're, they, they might be naive.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
They might, they might not, especially in modern science, look at the big picture, philosophical, ethical questions, all that kind of stuff. But ultimately they're, uh, people with integrity and just a deep curiosity for the discovery of cool-
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... little things. And there's no, um, uh, there's no malevolence, uh, broadly speaking in the scientific community. And so, I mean, there's a bigger story here which is, you know, there's a hunger in the populous to discover something anomalous, something new. And, um, you know, science has to be both open to the anomalous but also to reject the anomalous when the data doesn't support it.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
What, what do you make of that, you know, walking that line for you? Because you're dealing with UFO encounters, you're dealing with, with the anomalous.
- GNGarry Nolan
Well people have said, uh, let's go back to the Atacama case that I was debunking it.
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
Well, debunking is a loaded term. It sort of assumes that you were going in purposefully to prove something as wrong. I wasn't. I was just going in to collect the data. And, um, you know, I, I showed that this one was human. There was another skull that somebody had at one point, it was called the Starchild, they called it the Starchild skull. I said, you know, I looked at it, I looked at the DNA sequencing that they had done, I said, "This is human." End of story. Um, the people who owned the thing at the time disagreed with me and then eventually another group came in and proved that I was right. And it's not about debunking, it's about getting the more spectacular and hyped cases off the table. I mean, the reason I got interested in it is because somebody was hyping it.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
And not because I wanted to disprove it, but because I just wanted to know.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
And let's get it off the table, 'cause it's usually the most extravagant things that are most likely to be wrong. Somewhere i- in the rubble will be something interesting. And so that's what you do, you get the, you get the, the, the dross off the table and then somewhere in the data will be something worth, uh, real inquiry.
- LFLex Fridman
And that's, if you inquire deeply enough, will be extravagant as well.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yes. Exactly.
- 54:57 – 1:06:19
UFO materials
- LFLex Fridman
You've also looked at UFO materials. You are in possession of UFO materials yourself.
- GNGarry Nolan
Claimed UFO materials.
- LFLex Fridman
C- claimed?
- GNGarry Nolan
Alleged.
- LFLex Fridman
Alleged UFO materials, that's right. So (laughs) what's another term? Weird materials that don't seem to, uh, uh, how do you say-
- GNGarry Nolan
That have a story.
- LFLex Fridman
They have a (laughs) ... They have a story that doesn't seem to be of natural origins, but it, it's not... You know, there's a process to proving that and that process may, uh, take decades if not centuries because you have to keep pulling (laughs) at the, at the string and discover where they could possibly come from. But anyway, you, you are in possession of some materials of this kind. Can you, um, describe some of them and maybe also talk to the process of how you investigate them, how you analyze them?
- GNGarry Nolan
Right. So let's say that there's two classes of materials that I've been given by people, and they're not given by, like, the government or anything, just given, people who've collected them and there's a, a reasonable chain of evidence associated with them that you believe is not just a pebble somebody picked up off a road. Um, there are almost always things that people have claimed have either been dropped off as, like, some sort of a leftover material, molten metals, or, um, they are from a- an object that was released from this or that kind of ex- ex- exploded. They're almost always metals. I have some, couple of things that might be biological that are interesting that I haven't really spent a lot of time on yet. When you l- look at a metal, you basically go, "Okay, well, what are the elements in it?"
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
And, "What's it made of?" And so there's pretty standard approaches to doing that. Most of them involve a technology called mass spectrometry, uh, and there's probably about five or six different kinds of mass spectrometry that you could bring to bear on answering it. And they either tell you, depending upon the limit of the resolution of the instrument, they either tell you the elements that are there or they tell you the isotopes that are there. And you're interested not just in knowing whether something is there or not. You are interested in knowing whether there are, you know, the, the amounts of it, the, the... and in the case of elements, how many different isotopes are there? And, and that's kind of where in some of these cases it gets interesting, right? Because on, in at least one of the materials as we first studied it, the isotope ratios of, in this case it was magnesium, were way off normal. And I, I just don't know why. It do- doesn't, it doesn't prove anything. It just pr- all it proves is that it was probably accomplished by some kind of an industrial process. Whether it's the result of a process or whether... and, and this is sort of the leftover, or whether it was made that way for a particular purpose, I don't know. All I know is that it, it was engineered. That's it, right? But then it's... Th- the question is, as you sort of, you go one step deeper, why would you engineer it?
- LFLex Fridman
Right. W- why eng- and what does e- engineered means? There's all kinds of... It could be a byproduct. It could be, um, the main result of an engineering process. It might be a small part of the engineering process that is the main part.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm. Well, so the ratios of isotopes for any given element are basically the result of stellar processes. Uh, a supernova blew up sometime several tens, you know, several billion years ago, uh, that became a cloud. Those atoms coalesced gravitationally to form another sun, uh, and a, a ring that became a rocky planet, uh, and the ratios of the isotopes were determined at the time of that explosion. And so everything in the local solar system is more or less of that ratio depending upon certain gravitational diff- but, but by, uh, fragments of a percent-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
... not whole tens of percent difference. So what do humans use isotopes for? Mostly to blow stuff up. I mean, the, the vast majority of the isotopes that have been made in, in the per pound or ton are things like certain ratios of plutonium and uranium to blow stuff up. W- we don't make or engineer isotopes, which it's, it's today is relatively easy to do, but it's still expensive, for any other reason apart from, let's say, uh, as, uh, anti-cancer. Um, we use stable isotopes in money these days as a counterfeiting tool. You basically embed certain ratios of isotopes in to make it harder for counterfeiters to accomplish. Um, and so, but other than that, we don't do anything with that. So why would you make grams of such material in this one case and drop it around on a beach in Brazil?
- LFLex Fridman
So which case are we talking about here? Describe that Brazil case.
- GNGarry Nolan
This is the, this is the Ubatuba case.
- LFLex Fridman
Can you describe this case a little bit further-
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... like what material we're, we're talking about? Just the full story of the case?
- GNGarry Nolan
So, um-
- LFLex Fridman
It's an interesting one.
- GNGarry Nolan
It's an interesting one. So, a, a fisherman saw an object that, uh, released something or it, it, it exploded. And it was this r- r- rela- I'm, you know, I've got b- some big chunks of it, uh, relatively pure magnesium with obviously something else in it 'cause magnesium burns. So, it, it had something in it that would a- other metals, simple alloy, that would prevent it from, from, uh, basically burning up. Um, and so the question is... And so, so then we had, we had two pieces that came from, um, two different chains of custody both claimed to be from the same object. At least, uh, physically when you look at the two things they look the same, right? So, we took small fragments of each of them. We put them in an instrument called a secondary ion mass spec, uh, which is an extremely sensitive instrument and it can see down to .0001 mass units, uh, which is important for, let's say, more ar- arcane reasons, but, um, it's a sensitive instrument. And so one of the chains of custody, t- we had two pieces from the same chain of custody and then two pieces from the other chain of custody. O- o- one of them had completely normal, uh, magnesium isotope ratios, magnesium 24, 25, 26, and the other was off. Well, not just like slightly off, way off, and they were both off to the same extent. So, uh, I mean, it was sort of like you had an internal control of what was normal and then you had this other one which was, which was wrong. And so you're left with, uh, a s- kind of an open question: was this a hoax? W- were these two chains of custody one of them a hoax, that somebody purposefully introduced those things? 'Cause you could do it. It would cost a lot. I mean, at the time that this was found, I guess the 1970s or so, um, might've been earlier, I forget, uh, the amount that I had would have cost several tens of thousands of dollars to make. Um, and again, it's not something you would just throw around. And, and why would you do it in the hope that some guy 30 years from then would, would pick it up and study it?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, it's a very subtle, subtle troll.
- GNGarry Nolan
It's, yeah, it's a long-term plan.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
Um, so, so I, I just don't know... I just don't know what to make of it, except it's interesting. But it's... But... So a, a different kind of question that you're asking is, what constitutes evidence? Right? So, is, is this sufficient evidence? Absolutely not. But somebody's put it forward. I have the time. It's my time. I'll study it, and I... My objective is to sort of take those that I think are credible enough and do a reasonable analysis, put it out there, and maybe somebody else will come up with an idea as to what it is. Now, what would be better is some sort of true technology, right? Something that is obviously... But we don't have it, you know? And people like, uh, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Seth Shostak have come out rightfully and have said, you know, "When you show up with, you know, uh, something really obviously technology that we don't understand, you know, then we'll pay attention," right?
- LFLex Fridman
Not just material.
- GNGarry Nolan
Not just material. A piece of metal is, is interesting, uh, but... A- and several of the things that I've looked at and things that people... other things that people have come to me with, we found to be completely banal or were actually pieces of aircraft that were invented back in the 1940s.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
And so, take them off the table.
- 1:06:19 – 1:10:27
Jacques Vallee
- LFLex Fridman
you know him. Who is Jacques Vallee? What have you learned from him? About life, about... (laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
Oh, God.
- LFLex Fridman
About... (laughs) About UFOs, about technology, about our role in the universe.
- GNGarry Nolan
Well, I met Jacques actually soon after the whole Atacama thing happened. Um, I was visited by those people associated with the government and the, whatever around the, um, the Havana s-, what ended up l- mostly being Havana syndrome patients, but also Jacques at the same time. And, y- they were actually working behind the scenes with each other. Said, "Oh, here's this Stanford professor who is willing to talk about this stuff and investigate things. Um, maybe we should go talk to him." And he, he reached out through a colleague and he and I had lunch, actually, um, at the Rosewood Inn, um, up on, uh, near Sand Hill. So Jacques is one of the first openly active scientists, uh, and he's really a scientist, in this area, g- g- going back to the 1960s. Um, and, uh, you know, he's put forward a number of ideas, speculations about what it might be that people are inter- interacting with. And he... The first thing that I learned from him is this notion of what he called Kabuki theater, that many of the things that people have seen are... I remember reading his books and thinking, "He uses this word absurd a lot." Um, he said, "The- the things that people claim they see are absurd." Right? "A- a- a- a ship doesn't land in a farmer's field and then come up and knock on the door and say, 'Can I have a glass of water?'" And these are stories literally out of newspapers from the 1930s.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
It's- it's absurd.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
You know, and the other thing that people say, "Ships don't crash. If you're so technologically advanced, you don't crash. It's absurd-"
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
"... that they crash." So, um, he says, "This is put on as a show. It's meant to... It's an influence campaign."
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right? It's- it's not meant to influence individuals. It's meant to influence a culture as a whole. Maybe they don't look at us as individuals. Maybe they look at us as an organism that lives on a planet, right?
- LFLex Fridman
And perhaps rightly so.
- GNGarry Nolan
And so that's how you interact with them. That's how you influence them. So that was one of the first things that kind of took me back and realized, "Wow, there's actually a... Maybe there's a puppet master behind the scenes that's, you know, doing this influencing and that all this stuff about aliens is just, is not true per se. They're just a representation of something"-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
"... that is meant to influence." So that was probably the most interesting thing. I mean, the- the man is brilliant. Uh, he's also in- en- can be... And I'm sorry, Jacques. He can also be incredibly annoying to have a conversation with-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
... because he will pick apart your arguments or anything that you think you know and show you why you don't know what you think you know. And, and he uses the... He used the example that, for me, that is, is, is all you need is one counter-example to any conclusion and you're wrong. And so I learned from him. I mean, I'm supposed to be a good scientist, but I learned from him, "Don't talk about conclusions, just talk about the data. Because data's not wrong. I mean, convince yourself that the data's not wrong or not an artifact, but be careful about your conclusions because whatever is going on, it's- it's much more complicated than we- than we imagine."
- LFLex Fridman
Wow. That's powerful being able to s- always step back, because we get... We humans get excited.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
We start to, uh, jump to conclusions from the data, but always step back.
- GNGarry Nolan
Well-
- LFLex Fridman
Powerful being able to s- always step back, because we get... We humans get excited.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
We start to, uh, jump to conclusions from the data, but always step back.
- GNGarry Nolan
Well, in some of my Twitter feeds, when I dare to go on Twitter, are full of, "Well, when are you gonna give us the answer?" Well, y- you
- 1:10:27 – 1:21:33
UFO data
- GNGarry Nolan
know, science is not immediate. You're gonna have to be patient. And even some of my science colleagues have said, "Well, where's the data?" My answer to them has been, "Where's been your work to try to produce any?"
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
You know, I'm, I'm not here to give you everything on a silver platter.
- LFLex Fridman
We talked offline how much I love data and machine-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... learning and so on. And, uh, it's been really disheartening to see the, the US government not invest as much as they possibly could into this whole process. So let's jump to the most recent thing, which is, what do you make of the report titled Preliminary Assessment-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... Unidentified Aerial Phenomena that was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in June 2021? So this is... Was like, uh, "Okay, we're gonna step back and we're going to-"
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
"... like, what? Where do we stand and where do we hope the future is?" What do you make of that report? Is it hopeful? Is it, um...
- GNGarry Nolan
I see it as very hopeful. Very hopeful. I think the adults are finally stepping up and- and being in charge, right? I mean-
- LFLex Fridman
In the good sense of adult.
- GNGarry Nolan
What's that?
- LFLex Fridman
In the good sense of adult.
- GNGarry Nolan
In the good sense of adult.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
Um, you know-
- LFLex Fridman
Because childlike curiosity is pretty powerful thing.
- GNGarry Nolan
That's true. Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
I- I... It's... But it's also, I think, the people who were worried that the populous at large might run screaming into the streets and riot-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
... uh, you know, have... You know, they basically... The empiric evidence is they're wrong. You know, this, these videos and all these things have been out for now, what, five years? Most people don't even know about it. Right? So as- as- as hyped as it's been and all over the newspapers that it's been and et cetera, you know, even Tucker Carlson has talked about it many times on his news program. Um, Joe Rogan has. A lot of people don't know about it.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
So I think people, if it's not affecting their day-to-day life, they're going on with their day-to-day life. So, but that said, I think it was an important sea change in the internal discussions going on in the government because, and, and the reason being...... that I, I think this is actually partly true with the, the maturation of human social technology. It was becoming so obvious that this stuff was showing up again and again and again around our ships, they just couldn't keep it quiet anymore, right? And so it's like we need to do something about it. And Lue Elizondo and Chris and others, to their great credit, found the right angle to talk about this. Says, "Well, okay, let's say it's not out there. Maybe it's the Russians, the Chinese or somebody else. We should know about this 'cause we damn sure know it's not us." So that, to me, is an important thing to, to finally be a little bit more open about the matter. But, like I often say, I'm not looking for people to give me permission to do anything. I'm just gonna do the analysis myself with what I have. Avi Loeb has taken the same approach. He said, "I'm not gonna wait for the government to give me telescopic information about technologies or, or things that might be even in our own solar system. I'm just gonna collect it myself." And, and that's the right way to do it, right? Don't wait for somebody else to give it to you.
- LFLex Fridman
It's also possible to inspire a large number of people to do a wider spread data collection.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yes.
- LFLex Fridman
I mean, you yourself can't do a large enough data collection that would... If you're talking about anomalous events-
- GNGarry Nolan
Right, right.
- LFLex Fridman
... you, you should be collecting high-resolution data about everything that's happening on Earth in terms of like, uh, in, in terms of the kind of things that would indicate to you a strong signal-
- 1:21:33 – 1:26:10
Alien hardware in US possession
- GNGarry Nolan
- LFLex Fridman
Let's again put, put our sort of philosophical hats on. Do you think the US government or some other government is in possession of something of extraterrestrial origin that is far more impressive than anything we've seen in the public?
- GNGarry Nolan
If I... I've not seen anything personally, but if I believe the people who I don't think can lie, yes. This is-
- LFLex Fridman
How does that make you feel in terms of the way government works, the way our human civilization works, that there might be things like that and we're not... They're not public? Is, is, is there a hopeful message for transparency that's possible? Like, if you were, if you were, uh, in power, and I'm not saying president because maybe the president is not the, the source of power here, would you release this information in some way or form?
- GNGarry Nolan
Yes, if I were. I, I think it would... I think it's... Uh, I think it's something that can bring humanity together, right? I think that knowledge of this kind of thing, to know that we are, you know, we are more alike than we are different in comparison to whatever this is, is, uh, is a positive thing for us. Um, and to know... You know, I don't necessarily care that the government has been hiding it, and I think, you know, people who've been talking about w- we should give government officials or whatever amnesty, I think that's probably the right, the right answer. We don't... This isn't a time to look back and say, "You did something wrong." You did whatever you did because that was the data you had available to you at the time and those... You had good reasons for doing it. Now, if your reasons were selfish, if your reasons were you wanted to do it because you wanted to monetize it yourself, uh, to the, to your benefit but against that of others, then I think maybe there's something else that could be said. But, you know, uh, an opportunity to get all this information out, if I were in charge, I would, I would try to do it. Now, I might be shown something though that says, "Hmm, there's a reason why you don't wanna let anybody know this." You know, may- maybe you don't want everybody have, having access to unlimited, uh, energy because maybe you might turn it into a bomb.
- LFLex Fridman
Or something that gives you hints that something like unlimited energy is possible, but you haven't figured it out yet. And if you make it public, maybe some of the other governments you have tensions with-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... will figure it out first.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
I mean, I...
- GNGarry Nolan
It's kind of an arms race going on, I think.
- LFLex Fridman
In all forms, and it's, it makes me truly sad because, uh, it's obvious that, um, for example, the origins of the COVID virus, it's obvious to me that the Chinese government, whatever the origins are, is interested in not releasing information about it because it can only be bad for the Chinese government.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And every government thinks like this, like what... Uh, e- every... Actually, this has been a disappointment to me.... talking to PR folks at companies. Like, they're always nervous. (laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
They're always, like, conservative-
- GNGarry Nolan
Right, right.
- LFLex Fridman
... in the sense like, "Well, if we release more stuff, it can only be bad." And then an Elon Musk character comes along who tweets ridiculous memes and doesn't give a fuck. And I've been encouraging CEOs, I've been encouraging people to be transparent and... Of course, government is, national security is really, like, another level. It's human lives at stake. But let's start at the lighter case of just releasing some of the awesome insides of the te- how, how the sausage is made, the technology.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
And being transparent about it, because it, it excites people, it, uh, like you said, it, it connects people, it, it inspires them. It's, uh, good for the brand. It's good for everybody.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
I, I, I honestly think this kind of idea that people will steal the information and will use it against you is, um, is an idea that's not true and is the idea of the 20th century.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right.
- LFLex Fridman
Like you said, some of the benefits of the social media, uh, our, our social world, is that transparency is beneficial. And I hope governments will learn that lesson. Of course, they're the-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... usually the last to learn such lessons.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right, right.
- 1:26:10 – 1:29:05
Bob Lazar
- GNGarry Nolan
- LFLex Fridman
What do you make of Bob Lazar's story in terms of possession of aircraft? Do you believe him?
- GNGarry Nolan
I don't believe in the Bob Lazar story, to be quite honest. I mean, I, uh, Jeremy Corbell has done a great job interviewing him and, uh, has done some, you know, beautiful, uh, documentaries. Um, I, I just don't... I, I... I don't know how to interpret it. And, um, you know, and again, there's some of the people who fraternize with... think it's all rubbish. Uh, yeah, but he, maybe he's right, but I don't know. I mean, the pr- the problem is... And, um... This is a little bit different about how I approach the whole area than a lot of others. I'm less interested in going over old paperwork and all these old histories of who said what, you know, the, the whole he-said-she-said of the history of, of UFOs.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
I'm a scientist. I worked on the brain area because it's something I can collect data on. I can go back to the same individual, collect their MRI again, and redo it. I can hand that MRI to somebody else, they can analyze it. I can get materials, I can analyze them. I can get some of these skeletons, I won't touch any skeletons ever again, but I can analyze it and somebody else can reproduce the data.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- GNGarry Nolan
I mean, that's what I'm good at. And so, you know, I'm... I, I, I'm not going to go into the whole... I'm not a historian.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, that's true, but there's a human side to it. (sighs) I want... Sometimes I think with these... Because, again, anomalous rare events, some of the data is inextricably connected to humans.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
The observations.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah. Right.
- LFLex Fridman
Um, I mean, I hope in the future, you know, that, that, that sensory data will not be polluted by human subjectivity. But, you know, that's still, that's still powerful data, even direct observations-
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... like if you talk about pilots. And so it's an interesting question to me whether Bob Lazar is telling the truth, whether he believes he's telling the truth too.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And what... Also, what impact his story and stories like his have on the willingness of governments to be transparent-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... and so on. So m- m- m- you know, y- you have to credit his story for captivating the imagination of people and then getting the conversation going.
- GNGarry Nolan
He's maintained his story for all these years with little to no change that I'm aware of, so... Um, but there's so many other people who are, let's say, experts in that story, um-
- LFLex Fridman
Their gut, you know, you accumulate a s- (gasps) a set of sort of, um, circumstantial evidence where your gut will say that somebody is, uh, not telling the truth.
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- 1:29:05 – 1:33:07
Avi Loeb and Oumuamua
- GNGarry Nolan
- LFLex Fridman
You mentioned, uh, Avi Loeb. I forgot to ask you about Oumuamua.
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
You know, because you've analyzed specimens from here on Earth-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... what do you make of that one? And what do you make broadly of our efforts to look f- look at rocks essentially or look at objects-
- GNGarry Nolan
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... flying around in our solar System? Is that a valuable pursuit? Or maybe s- most of the stories are, can be... Most of the fascinating things could be discovered here on Earth or on other nearby planets?
- GNGarry Nolan
Just going to Oumuamua, uh, you know, I think Avi's insight is an interesting speculation, right? Like I was saying before, people can sometimes look at something and not see it for what it is. Many would just look at that and say, "Oh, it's an asteroid." And dismiss it. There was something odd about the data that Avi picked up on and said, "Well, here's an alternative explanation that doesn't fit, that actually better fits the models than it just being a rock." You know? And to his credit, he just has ignored the critics because he believes the data is real and is using that then as a battering ram to go after other things. So I think that's, I think that's great, you know?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I... Uh, what, what is his main conclu- Does he say it could be of, uh, alien extraterrestrial origin? Is that his, his, uh-
- GNGarry Nolan
Well, that's one of the things. I mean, he, uh, you know, he's explained how it could be a light sail.
- LFLex Fridman
Right.
- GNGarry Nolan
Um, and a light sail is certainly within near human capabilities to make such a thing. I think Yuri Milner is, he's a Russian billionaire. He's involved, I think, in a project to make light sails with laser-... you know, to, to, uh, launch them with laser power, essentially, uh, towards Alpha Centauri.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
Right? So it's something that humans could make. I think Avi's proposal is perfectly within the realm of possibility. I mean, sadly, the thing is, you know, now nearly out of our solar system.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. So, I mean, to me that's inspiring to do greater levels of data collection-
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... in our solar system, but also here on Earth. And it just seems like we should be constantly collecting, collecting data because the tools of software that we're developing get better and better at dealing with huge amounts of data. It's changing the nature of science. I mean, collect all of the data. (laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
Right. Collect the data. I mean, I, I, um, the Galileo Project asked me over the weekend to join, and I did.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- GNGarry Nolan
So, um, you know, I'm not a specialist in any of the stuff that they're doing, uh, but, you know, in looking at the list of people who are on there, there are really no biologists on there. So at, at some point, if my expertise is required for something.
- LFLex Fridman
What's the goal and the vision of the Galileo Project?
- GNGarry Nolan
Better talk to Avi, but my understanding and just actually looking at the, uh, at the, sort of the bylaws this morning, literally just got them-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- GNGarry Nolan
... um, is, uh, number one, collect the data on UAP and number two, collect data on, uh, local, potentially local technological artifacts.
- LFLex Fridman
I need to look into this. This is fascinating. And Avi is heading the Galileo Project?
- GNGarry Nolan
Yeah. Have you spoken to him?
- LFLex Fridman
On this podcast, yes.
- GNGarry Nolan
Okay.
- LFLex Fridman
That was bef- I believe it was before he was head-
Episode duration: 1:42:58
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