
This week I'm talking to Jonathan Caplan about his book 'Not For Disclosure UFOS: The World's Best Kept Secret'.
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Jonathan Kaplan
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Simon Bown
This is the alien UFO podcast episode 230 and I'm your host Simon Bown. My book, which is titled Aspects of Alien Abduction, is now on Amazon. You can get it on paperback, Kindle and audiobook and the audiobook is also on Spotify. This week I'm talking to Jonathan Kaplan about his book not for the World's Best Kept Secret. He has utilized his career experience to seek out the most reliable UAP evidence and to evaluate information from highly placed contacts. He has studied the phenomenon for over 50 years and served on the editorial board of a leading international UFO journal with distinguished correspondence. Jonathan is a King's Counsel and one of the UK's premier barristers. Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Simon.
Jonathan Kaplan
It's a very great pleasure and I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Simon Bown
So we're going to talk about your book. It's called not for disclosure, UFOs, the world's best Kept Secret.
Jonathan Kaplan
That's right. Published by Penguin Century.
Simon Bown
So, before we get into UFOs, you're a KC. Could you tell the listeners what that is? What do you do?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, so basically I am a lawyer. And in. In England we have barristers and solicitors, barristers of trial advocates, and after a while you can be appointed what's called a senior advocate, which is a King's Council, used to be a Queen's Council, but now it's a King's Council. And so I really do advocacy in courts and I've worked here in the UK and I've also worked in other jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere. So it's been interesting. I've been lucky to work on some quite interesting cases, but I've also very much enjoyed writing and ufology has been one of my great interests now for over 50 years.
Simon Bown
So I wanted to talk to you, first of all, about crashed craft.
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes.
Simon Bown
And first of all, though, I just wanted to get your viewpoint on it. Do you think these crafts genuinely crash or the. It's almost like it's a. It's a show, it's a put on, or it's a. It's a gift from whoever these ETs are of technology.
Jonathan Kaplan
I think there's three possibilities and I think all three are likely. Firstly, craft have been found, I understand, which have been there for hundreds of years. And these are craft which are almost archaeological finds, and some of them have been found under sea, some of them have been found in remote locations. Secondly, craft have actually crashed in recent years. And of course the big question is, well, if they've got such advanced technology, why would they crash? But there is a history of this. There now is quite a body of evidence that one of the first known crashes in the 20th century was at Magenta in Italy and was discovered by Mussolini. Then there are a number of crashes which occurred within the United states in the 1940s. Roswell was one of them, and. And that led to the involvement of President Truman and a body of scientists and intelligence officers. But the whole matter was obviously kept under wraps. Then there are stories which I haven't been able to confirm, that craft are simply found. And that has led to the suggestion that they've been gifted and that they've been found in different territories, for example, Russia, China, United States, which are the leading powers obviously that are having reverse engineering programs. And lastly, there are a number of stories that craft have been deliberately brought down by in particular the United States using a particular form of weaponry which allows them in certain circumstances to bring these craft down.
Simon Bown
Do you think it's a bit weird the, the aliens, whoever they are, don't seem to have their own crash retrieval team or like an ambulance, if it crashes and there's crew that are still alive, why don't they try and recover this stuff?
Jonathan Kaplan
I think the answer that is that the information I've received and others have also received is that that is very often the case and that the teams that are deployed in the United States, those are special recovery teams and also the Department of Energy, they are told pretty much to give a pretty wide berth for a two mile area around craft which have gone down for the very reason that you've given. Now, whether craft have come down and have been successfully retrieved, one must assume that's the case. But equally the legitimate question is, well, when they come down, why have they not been successfully retrieved even when special forces have gone from one of the countries on earth to retrieve them? I don't know the answer to that, but the fact of the matter is that there's very good evidence that craft which have been crashed have not been recovered by whoever it is, are the nhis that occupy and control it, but have actually been recovered by the United States or Russia or China.
Simon Bown
And you said earlier that the information you've received. Are there people in government or military that you know who are giving you rumors and information but they'd never go public?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, that's right. There are a number of people who I have got to know and whose trust I've received over the years in the intelligence services, not of this country, by the way, who have information of that kind and, and who I have spoken to over a number of years. I mean, this book actually has been 50 years in the making and I've only recently decided to write it. But I've collected information over a long time. I'm not the only one, of course, who has contacts of that kind. There are a number of other researchers whom you'll probably know who also are, let's use the phrase, well connected. And I think that's largely because there's, there is a debate within the three letter agencies as to whether there should be a total cover up or whether the Public really ought to be given more information and informed about what are undoubtedly pretty startling events.
Simon Bown
Do you feel that as the old guard you might call them, get older and they retire or perhaps they die, that the younger people that are coming through into those positions are more open minded and would more want to give out the information?
Jonathan Kaplan
Well, there is certainly mixed views about those who are currently in these positions. They're almost all career intelligence officers or very senior military figures or figures if they're not within the three letter agencies within the Department of Energy. That's as far as the United States is concerned. Concerned. I think that there are very real concerns regardless of the fact whether you're an old guard or a new boy. And I think they're these. Firstly, the. One of the prime reasons for the COVID up since the 1940s and Presidents Truman, Truman's era has been because there has been a massive drive to try and reverse engineer such anomalous objects or craft as they have been able to recover. And we don't know how successful they've been. There are various theories, but that technology is very, very, very highly classified. The craft in the United States are the subject of what are called special access programs and they are farmed out to military, defense, sorry, defense contractors outside of government under these very highly controlled circumstances. And that takes them outside the purview of normal freedom of information provisions. So there's been a huge recognition that the technology, if it can be recovered, is to be regarded as highly secret because it would put that country in a position of likely dominance. I think there's a second reason which will bear on the old guard or the new guard. And that is if you're going to say this phenomenon is real and that that is now really just an open secret in Washington. I mean so many people have come forward to say this is a very real phenomenon. And by the way, that there are crash craft. If you're going to say it's real and you're going to announce that, and it would probably in the United States have to be through the President. Then the obvious follow up questions are well, where are they from? Are they friendly? What's their agenda? Do they believe in God? And the answers to those questions simply are not known. I mean there is probably some advances to some source sources but by and large most of the major powers know the phenomenon is real, but they simply don't know the source or the agenda or the source is, I should say, or the agenda. And that would be very destabilizing. So I think it's a very fine balance. On the one hand, we as members of the public have the right to know if other non human intelligences are here with us. Secondly, those who are an authority clearly have concerns that they don't want to destabilize society or the markets or respect for law and order. And they're concerned that any disclosure doesn't, you know, achieve those ends.
Simon Bown
So you said earlier that you think Russia and China have recovered crashed craft. Do you know any specific cases? Because the American ones are famous, but
Jonathan Kaplan
Russia and China, well, of course those are adversaries and of course they have their own reasons for keeping their own security at very high level. So as far as Russia is concerned, yes, there is some evidence the Russians have admitted that they have advanced programs into this and that's quite well known. They, there are some documents regarding their, their reverse engineering programs which were obtained at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union. And I believe that the program was then described as G3. I'd have to check that. My memory is not that good. There's also evidence, I know this is very strange indeed, but there is good evidence that I've got from intelligence sources and more than one, that a craft landed by arrangement in Soviet Russia in 1994 and that this was communicated pretty swiftly back to the Americans. Now, I'm not saying it landed for them to keep, but it was certainly a landing by arrangement. As far as China goes, all we know is that they do have, and they've admitted that they've got advanced programs into UAPs. The, I have to say it's the assumption that they have crash craft. Most people in the intelligence world would say that they have knowledge. I do not know what that knowledge is that the Chinese are in possession of crash craft, but it's pretty certain that they do. And one of the intelligence concerns, of course, of the United States is that the technological race might be won by the Chinese rather than themselves. And it really is a, a matter of very high priority.
Simon Bown
So you mentioned a UFO crash in Magenta in Italy in 1933. Did that get a lot of research done? Do you know anything about it? I mean, because that was leading into the Second World War and they had a, you know, so much connection to the Nazis.
Jonathan Kaplan
Well, that craft ultimately went back to the United States after the war. What happened was that it was found by Mussolini's troops at Magenta. They were not sure what it was and thought it might be some advanced kind of German craft. And I understand that the Germans were brought in at the time to for their opinion. And there was a special department set up under Mussolini called RS33 and there is an Italian researcher called a Pinoti P I N O double T I who's done a large amount of work in recovering documents of the time showing where the craft was stored, that it was in fact under the control of a very small unit, this unit, Rs33 which answered only to Mussolini and though I mean the documentation regarding its recovery and its storage is now out there and and thanks to Mr. Panotti, the gentleman. David Grush, who is an American intelligence officer, gave quite famous now sworn evidence to the Oversight Committee in the US Congress a couple of years ago and referred to this crash. And indeed he told and has said in subsequent interviews that that craft came back to the United States at the end of the Second World War. Quite how it was achieved I don't know. It has been suggested and I think David Grush agreed, that this was with the cooperation of the then current Pope, but it came back to the United States. Yes.
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Simon Bown
Do you feel that countries around the world have some kind of treaty with the USA that CRAFT will be handed over to the USA if they have something? Because I heard something like that happened with Brazil.
Jonathan Kaplan
Well, that's a very interesting question. And so the CIA has a department which is involved in a number of processes. One is to deposit people or things in hostile territories. The other is to collect things or people from hostile territories. And that department has been used to recover CRAFT from abroad. Now that's happened. We know in. I think you're referring to the case of Varginha in Brazil. That's where a CRAFT landed where beings were seen not just by people in the town, but police officers and fire brigades officers who went to detain one of them that was seen in the vicinity of the town. One of them died very quickly from a very infectious disease. The other was taken to the local hospital in Virginia. And the consultant who treated him has gone public I think in the last nine months by saying that he visited him and his impressions of meeting very briefly this creature who was extremely intelligent, who was exuded an attitude, an atmosphere of great peace, knew exactly where he was and was calm. And that interview is quite compelling. And if you look up Vargina and you look at the consultant who dealt with with the creature, I'm sure you'll Find it. What then happened was that the American center plane to Campina, the craft and the creature or creatures were recovered and taken back. Now, the same thing has happened in Peru. There is a story of a Jonathan Wegant, W E Y G A N D T, who describes being seconded there as part of the United States forces at a Naval an Air Force observatory station being sent to a crash site. He came across this craft and beings very quickly after Special American Forces and the Department of Energy arrived, he was taken into custody and threatened and the craft and beings were taken out of Peru. Now, whether these things, I imagine both of those were done with the consent of the governments and I think today that's done by agreement or it's probably done by the payment of money. But there have been cases, I'm told, where craft have been taken forcibly or without permission where it's been unable to reach agreement or where it was thought that agreement wouldn't be reached and they've simply gone in with Special Forces and airlifted the anomalous object out.
Simon Bown
Well, we talked about the technology for these craft, but what about the bodies and particularly survivors? Is there any rumors of survivors of these crashes, like living on Earth, perhaps surviving weeks or months?
Jonathan Kaplan
So when David Grush gave evidence to the Congress, sworn evidence, he talked about biologics being found in the craft and those are obviously dead, non human life forms. He did not talk about or wouldn't talk about any live survivors. There is, there's been lots of rumors that there certainly was at least one live survivor who was kept for a number of years at Los Alamos before he died and imparted quite a bit of information about his own planet. There's another source, and that is Professor Haim Eshed, an Israeli astrophysicist who was behind the Israeli space program. He wrote a book which is only in Hebrew, which has never been translated into English, in which he talks about crashes and in some of those live survivors being recovered. Now, I have not been able to make contact with Professor Eshed. Curiously, since he wrote the book, he has refrained from making any public contact about it at all, which is very odd because you think if you've written a book, you do want some publicity. So I couldn't contact him. Nobody else has either, except I think he made a very brief appearance on a Yuri Geller website recently. That's the Israeli psychic. But by and large, he and his fellow author Hannah Yagai have shunned all interviews and publicity. Now, whether his account is reliable, where his information comes from, I don't know, but he certainly speaks about some survivors, live survivors in some crashes.
Simon Bown
Yeah, it's interesting, he refuses interviews. And the fact the book hasn't been translated into English or any other language, it's like there is some kind of clamp down on it.
Jonathan Kaplan
That's what I, I originally thought and indeed I've had the book translated into English. And it doesn't make sense that you write a book and then you decline to, you withdraw, in effect, from society altogether, as does your fellow journalist. But as I say, I think despite his respectability and his eminence as a leading figure in the space world, we should be cautious because we do not know the origins of that information. We don't know whether he obtained it officially, we don't know whether it's his private views. So I think until we know more, which we may never do, but until we know more, it's wise to treat that evidence with, with at least some caution.
Simon Bown
And didn't he say that there was a craft found near the Grand Canyon that they thought had been there since 2000 BC?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, he did. He gave evidence, he gave material in his book about a number of crashes that are not found within the literature. And one of those was a craft which was found at Comanche Point in the Grand Canyon, in Grand Canyon. And it had been there for hundreds or I think even a couple of thousand of years. And this is one of these archaeological finds that I'm talking about. And there is a department within the U S Army that is a specialist in finding craft which have been in situ and undiscovered for hundreds, if not thousands of years, both on land. And then the naval research people, using specialist forces, look equally for craft that have been in situ for very long periods of time underwater.
Simon Bown
I wanted to move on. I got so much to talk about. I wanted to ask you about the Majestic 12 documents because I believe you've studied them. Do you feel that they're genuine or it's like part real, part wrong, or it's misinformation?
Jonathan Kaplan
So this, as you know, Simon, is one of the most hotly debated topics within this subject. I believe that the vast majority of those documents are real and that they describe what the reaction of the army, the intelligence individuals and leading politicians were. And by that I mean the president, very few politicians, the president, Secretary of State James Forrestal, General Eisenhower and others and leading scientists when they discovered craft that were not of this earth during and in the immediate after aftermath of World War II. I think it was an extreme Shock, I think they had come out of a very serious war which threatened the survival of humanity. And to be faced with what appeared to be interplanetary craft when they did not know what the agenda was of those craft when they appear to be coming in reasonable numbers. And remember, there were large numbers over Washington in July 1952, as well as craft being sighted all over the United States and elsewhere in the world in the late 40s and 50s with airplanes, military. Military craft being brought down. If they went into the vicinity of these crafts, a lot of casualties. I think Majestic describes the organization which was set up by President Truman in September 1947 with Dr. Vannevar Bush and Mr. James Forrestal, the first Secretary of State. And that was to establish a secret organization that was limited to a number of intelligence officers, senior military figures and some scientists, and to keep this under wraps. And all of this was to be under the authority of the President himself. Now, we know with the establishment of The CIA in 1947 and other agencies that that unfortunately did not remain the case and that the CIA and other agencies have taken control of this and have taken it completely outside the purview of elected officials and Congress and are running these programs with private defence contractors under what are called, as I mentioned before, Special Access Project. But the Majestic documents are fascinating because they describe in detail the policy, reactions and personnel of those involved. And I've checked them against contemporary diaries. Not just the President's, not just James Forrestals or General Eisenhower's, but diaries, for example, of one of the first heads of the Atomic Energy Commission, David Lilienthal. And all the meetings in there that are described are in those diaries. And not only that, but the people that have had custody of the documents, that as a father and son, Robert and Ryan Wood, Robert is now dead, have had them examined. Others have examined the typography, the layout, the content, and they all conform to documents of that period. So my conclusion is that this is not some counterintelligence exercise. There's far too many documents. Many of them have got no counterintelligence purpose at all. So I don't believe they were created to deflect the Russians. I believe most of them are an accurate historical account of how America dealt with this extraordinary phenomenon that was presented to them at a time of crisis, principally in the late 1940s.
Simon Bown
And how many pages are there?
Jonathan Kaplan
Well, on the woods have put a lot of them online, and they're not all online, but they probably run through. I mean, they've been leaked by about three or four different counterintelligence officers over the years, there's probably over a thousand documents, too many to have been artificially created. And they all have legitimate contents, which, which are extraordinary. And I've discovered two new ones which are in the book, which are very important, which have never been found before, two new Majestic documents. And I talk about them at length in the book and are there any
Simon Bown
interesting pictures amongst them?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, now, I, I've found one. Well, a number of pictures, One I have to say I'm not sure of the provenance of, so I'm not going to push it too hard. It's of a saucer and some chairs. Now, I, I, the, the photograph definitely is. Originates from the 1940s, 50s, but I can't trace its provenance to a saucer in, let's say, the captivity of an American facility. So I'm going to leave that aside for the moment. But there are documents, photographs of people, scientists who were involved in Majestic 12, which have got MJ12 on the back and which came with some of these documents. And I've no doubt at all that those scientists who were originally what were called Operation Paperclip scientists, scientists brought over from Germany, Hungary and elsewhere to work on the atomic bomb development, went over to Majestic 12 and worked on the reverse engineering of these craft. Now, amongst them, I'll only mention two, was John von Neumann, N E U M A double N and Edward Teller. And there is corroboration for both of those men working for Majestic 12 from other people who were involved and admit they were involved in the programs at the time. And I've no doubt that they were principally involved in the scientific work of Majestic 12.
Simon Bown
I wanted to ask you about the Special Operations Manual, Extraterrestrial Entities and Technology. What did we gain from that? What's, what's interesting there?
Jonathan Kaplan
Well, that is a fascinating document and it's the one Majestic document which people tend to know about, but they forget that there are hundreds of others. This is a manual. And you've got to remember, of course, now we're in the days of computers, so there's no print. These kind of documents wouldn't be printed. They'd kept, be kept behind very safe locked walls in very closely guarded computer systems. But in those days, of course, you had to print documents and distribute them to those who had a right to know and needed to have them to define their work. Now, this is an operation manual which describes the brief history of a Majestic 12, going back to the crash at Roswell in July 1947. And the recovery of biologics from that craft. And it sets out what the aims and purposes of Majestic 12 were and how they were to discover and work on the propulsion system, on how the bodies were to be taken elsewhere. Live beings, if they were recovered, would be taken elsewhere. And it sets out in detail how this, the project was to be run with absolute secrecy. People were to be detained if they were witnesses without clearances. Threats and intimidation were to be used if required. I go further and say that people have actually been killed, that how objects were to be packaged and sent to different secure facilities, what those secure, where those secure facilities were. And in the book, we don't just publish the manual, but we publish the original manual that was disclosed. And you can actually see that this copy bears the Kirtland Air Force Base stamp, as well as there being assigned initials for those in a box page showing those who had access to the document. So I'm quite sure this is a genuine document. Again, the details in the document as to the sites where these crash remnants, wreckage or bodies were to be taken, again, all. All check out. And I, I think this is a genuine document. Yes.
Simon Bown
Before we move on, I'd just like to ask you, have you ever seen a ufo?
Jonathan Kaplan
No, I. I haven't, though obviously spoken to many people who have, some of whom have had close experiences. And it's worth mentioning that sometimes, I'm afraid, with close experiences of UAPs, there are a number of unpleasant effects. It could possibly be radiation effects, and there are even paranormal effects which have occurred to a number of people who have had a close UAP sightings.
Simon Bown
Yeah. Because I wanted to ask you about the abduction phenomenon. My book on abduction was published at the end of May, and I'm particularly interested in this side of things. What's your view of it?
Jonathan Kaplan
Well, I think it's a fascinating subject. And just to remind our listeners, thousands upon thousands of people all over the world of different cultures and different ages have described very similar abduction experiences. And those are either being abducted outside, for example, in the roadway, out of your car, or beings appearing in your bedroom and being abducted from your bedroom or even your house during the day or at night. And the descriptions of what happens are very frequent. Sorry, very consistent. Being taken into a craft, usually being subjected to a number of medical procedures, which often involved the extraction of semen or ova or other tissue samples and then being returned. Some people are abducted more than once. In families, there can be abductions going through the generations, so grandparents to parents to children. So there was a very Famous psychiatrist at Harvard University who I met and knew, John Mack, who made it his interest, having become a very famous psychiatrist at Harvard, to examine the abduction experience. He came to it knowing nothing about UAPs and with a very questioning eye. But by the time he had concluded his studies, unfortunately he was knocked down and killed by a motorist. But by the time he came to the conclusion of his studies and published a couple of books, he was firmly of the view that these were real experiences, not that these were induced, but they were real experiences, not that they were some kind of sleep disorder or other disorder, and that the people who were having them, by and large were not suffering themselves from any mental disorder. And that we were faced with, with having to rethink our concept of reality and consciousness. And he raised some very fundamental questions which now need to be answered and studied. And I hope academia can. If this subject loses, and I think it is beginning to lose a lot of stigma which has been deliberately planted around it, I hope people will carry on his research and so that we can further, amongst other things, this, these
Simon Bown
abduction phenomena, because there's this, this idea isn't. I think Jacques Vallee put this sort of thing forward of these beings being interdimensional or coming from another reality or something to do with consciousness. And they've been here for thousands of years and just been interpreted in different ways depending on how that time period sees what they see.
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes. And you can go back to, oh my goodness, you go back, if you wanted to, to the Bible, to the children of Israel being followed by a pillar of fire at night and pillar of cloud by day, to Ezekiel going up to the skies in a burning shield. You could go back to medieval monks describing burning shields in the sky. I've got a pamphlet I bought from auction in the 17th century of citizens of Newmarket and Cambridge encountering bizarre things in the sky which they thought were spears or swords and beings coming down. And you can go obviously on to fairies, goblins, all kinds of things. And you may well be right that we have constantly been living with non human intelligences of different orders and describing them according to the concepts that we understood and the language that we had of the times. And today, you might replace goblins and fairies, I suppose, with occupants of flying saucers or other aliens. But yeah, I mean, this comes back to the theory of what is their source. And Congress, when they were legislating to try and create a bill forcing disclosure by the government of uap, documents had to define non human intelligence. And they had a real problem because as you say, Simon, it could cover interdimensional beings, it could cover extraterrestrial beings of this physicality, but who've got mechanisms which allow them to distort time and space, which we don't know about. It could cover beings coming through portals, it could cover even a life form that we don't really know, which may coexist here, such as some kind of universal interactive consciousness which interacts with our own conscious individual consciences. We just don't know. And the real problem is that this phenomenon needs, if you're trying to understand it, we may just not have the equipment or the science or the concepts, particularly our concepts of time and space, reality and consciousness to properly interpret it.
Simon Bown
Another thing with the abductions is the hybrids, and that seems to be a major part of the agenda because so many of the abductees report, you know, they're being harvested for sperm and eggs. So what's your idea on hybrids? What's the agenda?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, I actually would also tend to link that with another phenomenon which has been known as cattle mutilation. And that again occurred all over the world, where cattle, not just cows, but a variety of animals, have been found in areas where there has been UAP activity. And there's been very advanced surgical procedures to remove their reproductive organs, eyes, etc, no blood. And scavengers won't go near these carcasses. So it's basically just very selective organs that have been very skillfully removed as if by some laser technique. And if you were to combine cattle mutilation with the experiences of human abductees, then I do think that there is something here that involves possibly, as you say, reproductive experimentation or hybridization. Now, in my book, not for Disclosure, I do refer to a CIA officer who recounts that he attended a lecture by a CIA officer for other officers and trusted scientists, where this officer talked quite openly within the confines of this lecture, about how DNA had been taken from some of the biologics which had been discovered in the 1940s and compared when genome sequencing was possible much later on with DNA taken from humans. And it was found that alien DNA was present in our DNA. Now, if that's right, then clearly our development has been the subject of some interaction at some point. And the same officer was talking about hybridization programs which the CIA understood were in existence and that they were actively trying to track and monitor such programs, which presumably were under the authority or control of non human intelligences. But this was all in the context of a CIA lecture. And I, again, I don't Know how far they've got with that work that they're doing?
Simon Bown
Because there's rumors of what they call my lab, isn't there the military abductions which sometimes happen.
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes.
Simon Bown
When somebody's been brought back.
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes. So there are rumors that we have reverse engineered some craft to a certain degree of advanced capability. And so that instead of UAPs we've got reproduced craft which have got certain anti gravity abilities and that people have been abducted by special Forces certainly in the United States and have been taken with or without their consent. I don't know. For experimental programs which are being secretly conducted in the us. Yes.
Simon Bown
I'd like to get onto something else. People are getting a good flavour of the book, but there's so much detail in there they'd have to read it to really find out about all this stuff. But I wanted to ask about the Royal Family and particularly Prince Philip. Did he have a great interest in it?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, he had a very great interest in it. And I began, Simon, my researches into this subject back in the 19, early 1970s. And I was on the board of an international UFO magazine which in fact was I. I was only on the board. There were very distinguished editors and correspondents, some of them. Jack Vallee was a correspondent. What does the name one. And one of my roles was to deliver each copy, which was printed every two months, to Prince Philip's equerry. And Prince Philip had a very keen interest in this subject, as did Laura, the late Lord Mountbatten. And Prince Philip's equerry, he's written a book called Sounds From Another Room. His equerry wrote this book and he would never have written the book without Prince Philip's corporation. And Prince Philip allowed him to interview some key witnesses when they learned of them actually at Buckingham palace and to make a report which obviously Prince Philip would then read. And this equerry also had a mysterious meeting, believe it or not, in a Chelsea flat with an individual. It was set up by a member, a fellow military officer, to meet a lady in Chelsea who wanted to introduce him to someone. It was all rather mysterious. This man turned out to be a Mr. Called it Mr. Janus, somebody who sat down with the equerry who was able to read his mind and was able to confirm that he knew a lot of very confidential and secret information. And they went on to discuss with the equerry a lot about flying saucers, about an advanced civilization that was so advanced that it wanted to create life itself on another planet. And the whole process of life in the universe and the object of this conversation was that he wanted Sir Peter to affect an introduction to Prince Philip, who was regarded as somebody who was very well versed in the ecology of the planet and who was somebody they felt would be sympathetic to the aims of the non human intelligences who were behind this particular enterprise. Anyway, so Peter went away. Sir Peter Horsley is his name. H O R S L E Y He went away. He was quite disturbed by the meeting. He resolved not to make that introduction. But when he went back to the flat, Mrs. Markham, who was the lady he'd met and whose flat it was, was not there, disappeared. And he was never able in any event to contact Mr. Janus again. Not that he'd wanted to do so.
Simon Bown
And is there also, I think somebody else who was quite high up in the uk? Was it Sir Henry Tizard and he had communications with ForestAll in the USA?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, that is I've discovered in the book. I think it's a very key piece of new evidence. You were talking about Majestic 12 and we were saying, well is it real? Isn't it? There's been a big debate and I firmly come on down on the side that it was a very real organization. And what I've discovered is that within one week of professor of President Truman's directive to Bush and ForestAll to establish MJ12 and to report directly to him, James Forrestal held a lunch for a Sir Henry Tizard as a Henry Tizard with a chief science Scientific officer, sorry, the chief scientific officer at the Ministry of Defense here in London who was known to James Forrestal because of work they'd done together during World War II. And Forestall came back to the UK and he set up a secret flying working saucer party at the Ministry of Defense. And the introduction to that by somebody else to that report when it was published said following the lead of the Americans, it is imperative to maintain secrecy about this subject. And only one copy of this report is being printed and that's for Sir Henry. So it is almost inevitable that Forestall told him about Roswell and about Majestic 12. Tizard came back and Tizard set up our own investigation here within the Ministry of Defense. Not only that but the within the same time period, about a week or two after meeting Tizard, Forestall met with some very senior RAF officers. So and you've got to remember he's Secretary of State, a very busy man, but had number of meetings with senior RAF officers at the Pentagon and you have to assume that that was all part of a plan which was in connection with what they discovered about the alien presence and what the British should now be doing.
Simon Bown
Another fascinating chapter is called what the Octogenarians Revealed. So before we talk about the people in that, what is this about?
Jonathan Kaplan
So this is just a pattern, a loose pattern, which I think is true probably of human nature and which is certainly true in this subject. And that is that people who've been sworn to secrecy usually conform with that oath, because they don't. First of all, it might be either a matter of honor or they don't want to prejudice their pensions, or they don't want to be put at risk of personal harm to themselves or their family. But once they get into a late age, let's say they become octogenarians, then I think they want to leave behind. They don't want to take these secrets with them. They regard them as being of such important to humanity that they then either write a book or tell their family about it. And so in this chapter I've looked at three or more people who have done precisely that. One of them is a man called Lieutenant Philip Corso. Another is high meshed another is a woman called June Crane. And these are just examples, I think there's another. All of them have written down or given interviews to others about these secrets concerning UAPs and their involvement with them, which they have kept to their bosoms throughout their life. But now as they're about to depart this world, they want to tell others, their family and others about what they are.
Simon Bown
So could we talk about June Crane? Because she's like an employee at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, but she was in a good position to hear all this information.
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, she was. And she was at Wright Addison Air force base from 1947 through until the early 50s. And all her employment and clearance details, those documents which she kept, she produced. There's no doubt at all as to the authenticity of her role and who she said she was. And she became so incensed when the Air Force published a report about Roswell. Roswell became a matter I was only discovered in the late 1970s and, and that was to say over 30 years after the crash. And then material started to be written about Roswell. There came to be quite a large public furore about it, and the Air Force published a report trying to put out the fire. And what they said was, well, in fact this was all part of Project Mogul, which was a project by which we launched quite advanced weather balloons which were launched to detect any atomic detonation by the Soviets. And we'd have these measurements in high levels of space. Alternatively, we should tell you that as part of Project Mogul, we were using anthropomorphic dummies, and one of these balloons crashed. And no doubt what people thought were aliens or crash craft was a crashed weather balloon and an anthropomorphic dummy. Now, June Crane became so incensed when she read that report because she knew, having been at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, that that was a lie, because some of the. One of the aircraft that came from nearby Roswell that had collected debris and biologics came to Wright Patterson. And she was told by the master sergeant on that plane that there were alien life forms which were being temporarily stored at Wright Patterson overnight, that he'd accompany them on the craft. She was shown some of the material which had been collected, this famous tin foil, which you could crumple as you would a ball and then put on the table, and it completely opens out flat without any creases. So she'd seen that she was told by senior officers that it was part of an extraterrestrial craft. So she was there. She was an eyewitness to events, and. And she was somebody who all her life had kept those secrets, but at the very end, not wanting to make any profit, she had revealed those secrets to others.
Simon Bown
So it's been great talking to you. Thanks a lot for coming on the podcast. The book's called not for disclosure. UFOs, the world's best Kept secret. And people can get that. Amazon and Bookshops, is that right?
Jonathan Kaplan
Yes, Amazon or any of the bookshops, Waterstones, they're all available and they're all stocking it, but Amazon, obviously is a very quick way. And I. I do hope you read it. I do hope you enjoy it. I've tried to put in there a great deal of material, much of which you cannot access to describe the phenomenon as. As fully as I can. And the sources at the end of the book. Oh, and. And. And an email for people to contact me if they wanted to, with any confidential information, which is not for disclosure at Proton Me.
Simon Bown
Great. And do you have plans for another book?
Jonathan Kaplan
I. Yes. I mean, I. I obviously do like writing. I. I definitely want to write another book, hopefully, on this subject, and I'll see where. How it develops and what information I receive confidentially as well.
Simon Bown
Fantastic. And thanks again for coming on the podcast.
Jonathan Kaplan
Well, Simon, thank you so much for allowing me to be one of your guests.
Simon Bown
And that was an interview with Jonathan Kaplan about his book, not for disclosure. UFOs, the world's best Kept Secret. And if you want to hear the extended version of this episode, you can join Patreon just go to patreon.com alienufopodcast when you sign up, you get access to the episodes in the back catalog. They are ad free and are released two days before the free versions. My website is SimonBauwn.com and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review and be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or via your favorite podcast app to make sure that you don't miss out on any episodes. And thanks for listening.
UFOS: Not For Disclosure
Date: July 6, 2026
Host: Simon Bown
Guest: Jonathan Kaplan, King's Counsel, author of Not for Disclosure: UFOs, the World’s Best Kept Secret
This episode delves into the enduring mystery of UFOs and the balance between secrecy and disclosure by governments around the world. Simon Bown interviews veteran barrister and ufologist Jonathan Kaplan, discussing his new book, decades of research, famous and obscure crash retrievals, reverse engineering efforts, abduction phenomena, potential hybridization agendas, and the involvement of high-profile figures like Prince Philip. Jonathan brings a legally trained, evidence-focused perspective, including intelligence contacts and years of document analysis. The conversation raises thought-provoking questions about government secrecy, non-human intelligences, and the nature of reality itself.
[04:12] Are UFO crashes genuine or staged?
[06:53] Craft Retrieval and Alien Response
[13:22] Secrecy and the Prospect of Disclosure
[13:32, 20:59] Russia, China, and Treaties
[15:32] The Magenta Crash (Italy, 1933)
[24:22] Biologics and Survivors
[27:28] Ancient Finds
[28:29, 35:16] Authenticity of MJ-12 and Special Ops Manual
[32:54, 33:33] Scope of Docs
[38:30, 41:30] Consistency and Possible Meanings
[44:32] Hybrids, Cattle Mutilation, and DNA
[47:19] MILABs—Military Abductions
[48:10] Prince Philip and Sir Henry Tizard
[51:33] UK-US Collaboration
[53:48] Final Revelations from Aging Insiders
[55:45] June Crane’s Eyewitness Testimony [55:54]
On the motivation for secrecy:
“That technology is very, very, very highly classified…takes them outside the purview of normal freedom of information provisions.” (Kaplan, 10:57)
On what’s really known:
"Most of the major powers know the phenomenon is real, but they simply don't know the source or the agenda…And that would be very destabilizing." (Kaplan, 12:39)
On the role of hybrids:
“Alien DNA was present in our DNA…they were actively trying to track and monitor such programs…” (Kaplan, 45:54)
On the abduction phenomenon:
“We were faced with, with having to rethink our concept of reality and consciousness.” (Kaplan, 39:54)
On Prince Philip’s interest:
"One of my roles was to deliver each copy…to Prince Philip's equerry. And Prince Philip had a very keen interest in this subject..." (Kaplan, 48:32)
On the importance of octogenarian testimony:
“They regard them as being of such important to humanity that they then either write a book or tell their family about it.” (Kaplan, 54:13)
This summary captures the essence and high points of the episode, reflecting the original tone and nuance of the conversation, and provides useful timestamps and insights for listeners and newcomers alike.