Here’s What We Know About UFOs & Aliens - Jesse Michels

An interest with UFOs is maladaptive to most people.

(laughs)

How so?

Oh, yeah. You're quoting me on, I think, Danny Jones. I think, in some ways, and this actually speaks to, you know, we're on Modern Wisdom here, I think a lot of what people should be focused on is the lower end of Maslow's hierarchy. Like, it's, like, subsistence living, you know, paying taxes on time, uh, uh, putting food on the table, being basically healthy, and then I think at a certain point, then you start to care about the sort of more, like, existential, you know, who are we, what's our place in the universe, you know, what is humanity's place in the cosmos. And so that's why I think in some ways it's, it's maladaptive 'cause if you don't have that lower end sort of figured out, it's, like, why focus on this sort of, you know, really crazy pie-in-the-sky stuff?

That's so interesting that you think people have sort of taken the, uh, stair lift to the top of Everest-

(laughs)

... of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's like if you're asking are we alone in the universe but you haven't got a steady job or you, your health's in the toilet or you don't have a community of people around you, you're probably focusing on the wrong things.

100%. In fact, I think a lot of people focus on it as a circumvention of reality itself. It's an escape mechanism, and so you wanna get abducted or taken away (laughs) on a UFO or something because-

Better than this fucking place.

Yeah, right. You wanna throw a Hail Mary because there, you know, things aren't going well on sort of a base level. And so I think for those people, they should probably just focus on the core issue. You know, if they have, like, a marital problem or something, like, go focus on that. Like... (laughs)

Yeah. What... That's an interesting question. What is the avatar in 2025 of somebody who's interested in UFOs? 'Cause, you know-

Mm.

... there's kind of a... And I, I wonder why this is the case. When I think about UFOs, I always think about sort of the '60s and the '70s.

Yes.

You, tha- that's kind of the, the golden era of abductions and stories and Roswell and-

Yeah.

Like, that's kind of where my mind goes to.

Yes.

But you're a good example of someone who's super smart and is knee-deep in all the research for this stuff. Something tells me you're probably a little bit non-typical with that?

(laughs) Yeah.

But, like, who is the avatar for the UFO investigator now or the, the, the, uh, uh, Monday morning quarterback?

I think it's radically shifting. So I think even five, ten years ago, it would've been, like, you go to this, like, Contact in the Desert is this, like, you know, convention for UFOs. It used to actually take place in the actual desert. People started to get, like, heat strokes and stuff (laughs) and now it's, like, indoors. But it's all, like, you know, it's a lot of crystal healers from the Southwest sort of vibe, you know? It's people who are... Uh, and I love a lot of these people, you know? The, uh, they'll live in, like, Sedona or something or, you know, in, in some of these small towns across the US and they've had family experiences or they're just a little more kind of woo-woo and they're, that's what kind of got them into this stuff. I think that's dramatically started to change. I mean, you, uh, a, a, a good example is, like, certain people you've had on. You've had on Eric Weinstein, my old colleague, you know, we worked together at Thiel Capital, at, you know, Peter Thiel's family office. A, you know, a, a g- a very sort of conventionally successful guy. You had Tulsi Gabbard on. She's the now, you know, uh, Director of National Intelligence who oversees all of the intelligence agencies, and she has stated as part of her mandate that she wants to look into UFOs. Like, this, and I've actually spoken to her.