Dan Farah | Club Random with Bill Maher

Summary

Club Random with Bill Maher: Dan Farah | Age of Disclosure, Aliens & The Power of Movies

Date: January 26, 2026
Guests: Bill Maher (host), Dan Farah (filmmaker, producer, "Age of Disclosure")

---

Overview

This episode features a lively, in-depth conversation between Bill Maher and filmmaker Dan Farah about UFOs (now UAPs—Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), government secrecy, and society's readiness for the potential disclosure of extraterrestrial life. Sparking off Farah’s new groundbreaking documentary "Age of Disclosure," they weigh credible testimonies, ponder the cultural evolution on the subject, and debate how movies (especially an upcoming Steven Spielberg film) influence public openness to these ideas. The dialogue meanders through serious concerns and comic relief—very much in Club Random’s signature tone.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The UFO/UAP Terminology & Cultural Shifts

[05:01-05:54]

• Rebranding UFOs as UAPs: Farah explains the shift from "UFO" to "UAP" (“Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”) intended to remove the "giggle factor" and social stigma so that discussions are taken seriously within government and scientific circles.

  • Quote [05:30]:

    "So UAP allows it to be looked at differently. Also, a lot of the activity is happening in our oceans, and these things aren't flying like UFO stands for flying."
    — Dan Farah

• Maher agrees but jokes about the confusion and resistance people may feel with new acronyms.

2. Farah's Documentary and Its Unique Approach

[07:10-07:46]

• "Age of Disclosure" Documentary: Farah deliberately only interviewed credible sources with direct knowledge from government service, shunning sensationalism and speculation to uphold credibility.

  • Quote [07:46]:

    "I wanted to make the most credible doc ever made on the topic... Just set the bar—like real, credible people who actually have direct knowledge of this."
    — Dan Farah

• Maher notes this wasn't possible a decade ago due to a lack of credible, public testimony—a shift that signals changing times.

3. Are Aliens a Threat or Just Observers?

[10:16-12:14]

• Maher observes that if aliens were malevolent, their advanced technology would have allowed them to destroy or harm humanity already.
• Farah cautions that while they seem to just be monitoring, rapid technological evolution (like nuclear capabilities) may force a confrontation or decision from extraterrestrial observers.
  • Quote [10:19]:

    "...the point a lot of the people in my film make is that we're kind of barreling towards a crossroads..."
    — Dan Farah

4. The Nuclear Age as a Trigger for Alien Attention

[11:16-14:25]

• Discussion connects the post-1945 increase in UFO sightings to humanity's entry into the nuclear era.

  • Quote [11:35]:

    "One compelling piece of evidence...they did seem to appear right after the nuclear age began...to me, that's quite a coincidence."
    — Bill Maher

• Farah and Maher agree that advanced propulsion (possibly fusion or beyond) distinguishes the technology behind UAPs from anything humanity possesses.

• Farah suggests the greatest current risk is an adversarial power (like China) cracking alien technology first.

5. The Technology Race and Global Secrecy

[21:25, 27:47-28:24]

• U.S., China, and Russia all reportedly have programs to retrieve and reverse-engineer crashed alien tech—described in the film as a “Manhattan Project on steroids.”

  • Quote [27:52]:

    "...our country and Russia and China all have these hidden programs...trying to reverse engineer them. And it's a technology race."
    — Dan Farah

• The secrecy persists partly to avoid adversaries learning what the U.S. knows, compounded by a culture of compartmentalization (CIA, DOE, Defense, etc., not sharing fully even among themselves).

6. Stigma, Disclosure, and Public Readiness

[18:45-20:31, 32:03-36:13]

• Farah details how CIA and other agencies actively created stigma in the mid-20th century to keep the public from seriously investigating. He notes the generational and societal shift: in 2026, mass panic is unlikely, but there will be a diversity of public reactions.
• Maher and Farah agree popular media—especially an upcoming Spielberg movie "Disclosure Day"—is likely to play a major role in advancing public consciousness, as past films have with other social issues.

7. The Power of Movies and Cultural Change

[36:39-38:02]

• Farah credits his interest in the topic to "Close Encounters," ET, and The X-Files; Maher jokes that everything movies depict comes to life eventually. Both agree on the immense influence of Hollywood in shaping views and opening people’s minds.
  • Quote [36:13]:

    "Movies have a unique power to open people’s eyes to thoughts."
    — Dan Farah

8. Deep Dives: UAPs in the Oceans & Multiple Alien Species

[38:14-41:41, 49:38-50:40]

• Farah elaborates on credible reports of UAPs operating underwater at impossible speeds.
• He reveals through interviewees that recovered alien bodies are of different "types," implying multiple alien species have visited or are visiting Earth.
  • Quote [50:14]:

    "...the crash sites have included the bodies of non humans and that the bodies were not all the same type, implying different species..."
    — Dan Farah

9. Will Disclosure Unite Humanity?

[66:33-69:28]

• Both are skeptical that confirmation of alien life would unite humanity. Maher jokes the American left and right would immediately try to recruit aliens for their side.
  • Quote [68:57]:

    "As soon as the aliens landed, the Republicans and the Democrats would try to get them to be on their side against the other party."
    — Bill Maher

10. Abductions, "Men In Black," and On-the-Ground Evidence

[70:19-81:35]

• Farah says his film intentionally avoided abduction phenomena so as not to lose credibility with skeptics, but confesses he interviewed military personnel and politicians who shared close encounter and abduction stories.
• He distinguishes credible government cover-up ("Legacy Program") from sci-fi ideas of aliens in human disguise (as in "Men in Black"), calling the latter “probably science fiction.”
• Farah further references psychiatrist John Mack, whose research posited that abductees genuinely believed in their experiences.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the force of disclosure:
  "It would be the greatest moment a leader could possibly have. I mean, there's no bigger moment in the history of humanity."
  — Dan Farah [16:05]

• On stigma and government secrecy:
  "Elements of the intelligence community, including the CIA, created the stigma around this early on...to get people thinking it's crazy."
  — Dan Farah [18:52]

• On mass cultural change via movies:
  "When Hollywood addresses an issue, it does change minds. And it's mostly been for the better..."
  — Bill Maher [46:03]

• On the mental shift about alien visitation:
  "If you're the person who really thinks we're alone in the universe, you're kind of on the side of ... not flat earthers..."
  — Bill Maher [34:31]

• On multiple alien species:
  "He says on camera that the recoveries have included ... bodies of non humans and that the bodies were not all the same type, implying different species..."
  — Dan Farah [50:14]

• On the future and the race to alien technology:
  "My hope is there's people out there who start looking into this topic because they watch this documentary or because they watched Steven's movie in June and they start thinking about it differently, taking it seriously."
  — Dan Farah [39:56]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Defining UAPs; why not just 'UFO'? [05:01-05:54]
• The problem with old alien stereotypes & seriousness of the new documentary [07:46-08:45]
• Speculations on alien intentions and morality vs. technology [10:16-12:14]
• Post-nuclear era and increased sightings; historical correlation [11:16-14:25]
• Crash retrievals and the clandestine technology race [21:25, 27:47-28:24]
• On secrecy and interagency rivalry [28:24-31:16]
• The power of movies to drive social change—historical analogies [36:39-38:02, 46:03]
• Undersea UFO sightings and the idea of underwater alien bases [38:14-39:56]
• “We are not alone”; Spielberg’s 'Disclosure Day' and a cultural tipping point [31:37-36:13]
• Multiple alien species confirmed by government sources [49:38-50:40]
• Men In Black, abductions, and 'too weird for the mainstream'? [70:19-81:35]

---

Tone and Takeaways

The episode is a balance of open-minded seriousness and signature Maher snark. Both men show willingness to entertain extraordinary notions while clinging firmly to reputable, evidenced claims. Farah’s documentary is positioned as historic, riding a cultural wave just ahead of the mass exposure Spielberg’s upcoming movie will bring.

The conversation leaves listeners with the sense that the “Age of Disclosure” is imminent: The evidence and testimony are more credible and voluminous than ever, the technology race is real, and the cultural tide is turning. But—true to Maher’s worldview—humanity’s ability to handle the truth, work together, and rise to the occasion is still in deep question.

---

For a deeper dive, check out Dan Farah’s "Age of Disclosure" documentary, and watch for Spielberg’s "Disclosure Day"—this could indeed be a hinge moment in how humanity contemplates its place in the universe.

Transcript

[Tom Scharpling]

Here's the real problem. Dinner isn't about cooking. It's about the mental exhaustion of deciding what to eat when your brain is already closed for business. Well, HelloFresh removes that part entirely. What you really get back is time, energy, the ability to sit down like a civilized person. What could be better than that? Go to hellofresh.comrandom10fm. Get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife. A 14499 value on your third box. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one platform for building a website. So if you've got a passion project, a business idea, or you just want to look more legitimate online, go to squarespace.com clubrandom for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code clubrandom to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Squarespace. Build something real. Breaking news. Our merch just got a full revamp with our all new designs and items. So if you want a little more random in your life, head over to clubrandom.com and check out the store. We've got premium hoodies, including our brand new quad hoodies with the updated logo. Super soft T shirt, super soft for men and women, and even tie dye shirts. All merch is available [e-mail] while you're there, catch up on recent episodes and grab some swag and bring a little random home. Once again, that's clubrandom.com certainly they are not beefing.

[Alex Dietrich]

I don't think we would know.

[Tom Scharpling]

We would if they were beefing right above us.

[Alex Dietrich]

Club Random. He's the greatest filmmaker of all time.

[Tom Scharpling]

He is, absolutely. I always say about him, he's known as the greatest filmmaker and he's still undermined.

[Alex Dietrich]

Claw Random. Dan. Hey, how you doing?

[Tom Scharpling]

Good, how are you? Good to see you, man. Dan, your. Your spaceship is double parked down.

[Alex Dietrich]

Thanks for having me.

[Tom Scharpling]

We're gonna have to move that.

[Alex Dietrich]

I got dropped off.

[Tom Scharpling]

You don't travel in a spaceship. Are there people who think that? Do you get hate for being the apostle here of the UFOs? No. No hate mail on that.

[Alex Dietrich]

Not really. Not really.

[Tom Scharpling]

That's amazing. Because this country is so divided that I would think anything like. Because certainly, you know, it's in your documentary and I talked about it on my show with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who concurs with some of the people in the Defense department who think aliens, they're demons. We're talking about angels and demons. Fallen angels is what Marjorie Taylor said. That's. I mean, you say aliens, other people. To me, this could be the dividing line to start. Like a lot of online fighting.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, you know, like, everybody's, you know, allowed to have their own opinion. The one thing I. I have gotten. I have gotten. I have gotten some, like, angry DMS on these social media sites where people are like, I want more evidence. I want to see this, I want to see that. And I'm like, I do too. We all want more.

[Tom Scharpling]

But, you know, angry that you're not giving enough evidence, or angry that you're just saying this and it's really something like demons or angels.

[Alex Dietrich]

There's a lot of people who just wish there was more evidence for them to see. But I think, you know, I think disclosure of this stuff is a process.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, I saw. I cut this out of the paper the other day just because I wanted to read it. It was just. Just yesterday, the British military actually just tried to obtain extraterrestrial technology in the 90s. This just came out. They just released this after thousands of reported sightings over Belgium between November 1989 and April 1990. Large, silent, low flying black triangles demonstrating propulsion capabilities far beyond any known flight technology. And the British thought they needed to find out what it is so they could reverse engineer it. They, you know, said, we got to have this.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, I saw that, too. There's a lot of activity, historical activity in the UK. There's a.1 of the interviews I did that I had to just cut for time. In the film, I interviewed former base commander of Rendlesham of a base that was in Rendlesham Forest in the uk.

[Tom Scharpling]

Oh, yeah, they mentioned that. Yeah, it's in Suffolk, England.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. So it was a joint. At the time, it was a joint base between UK and us. And on Christmas Eve, can't remember which year was in the 80s, there was a big UAP event just outside the base.

[Tom Scharpling]

UAP is the old UFO, huh?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

It really changed things a lot when they made that change, huh?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, I think it helps. I mean, I really do.

[Tom Scharpling]

Really?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

Why?

[Alex Dietrich]

One of the guys I interviewed.

[Tom Scharpling]

Unidentified Flying Object, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.

[Alex Dietrich]

Unidentified. It stands for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.

[Tom Scharpling]

Oh, for fuck's sake. It's a ufo. And we got used to UFO and it's the same thing, and you're just confusing people.

[Alex Dietrich]

Well, here's the thing. It's not helpful.

[Tom Scharpling]

It's unhelpful.

[Alex Dietrich]

There's two valid reasons. So one of the guys I interviewed, Jay Stratton, very senior intelligence official, he found that when he would bring up UFOs in certain rooms. It led to this giggle factor, and there's a stigma around that word. So UAP allows it to be looked at differently. Also, a lot of the activity is happening in our oceans and these things aren't flying like UFO stands for flying.

[Tom Scharpling]

All right, all right, fine.

[Alex Dietrich]

So there you go.

[Tom Scharpling]

Take it to me. It seems like a minor. You're probably right about that. Okay, so we'll get used to the new one. But it's probably so inconsequential compared to what, to me seems like the issue. And, you know, you were on Real Time recently.

[Alex Dietrich]

Thanks for having me.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean the movie. Your movie. Age of Disclosure about this is groundbreaking. And, you know, I'm on your page, basically. I mean, look, do we know anything? Nope. I just feel like it gets harder and harder as the evidence accumulates. And you know what your movie did so well was it arrayed, this lineup of very credible people, including the Secretary of State, senators, you know, military people. Not the. You know, when I was first doing comedy, it was all these jokes about little green men came down and they ate my wife. And she liked that. You know, just. That was all that probing my asshole and. And now it's not that. It's not the farmer in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it's. It's very credible people.

[Alex Dietrich]

So that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to make the most credible doc ever made on the topic.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah.

[Alex Dietrich]

And something that wasn't sensational. I always wish this film existed. Over the years, I've been fascinated with this topic. I've watched every doc on it. I've watched every, you know, movie or series about it. And I always wish someone would go take the time to make a documentary that only interviewed people who have direct knowledge of this as a result of working for the US Government and to just have them share what they lawfully can. Don't sensationalize it. Don't just throw some random guy in there because it's cool. Casting just set the bar. Like real, credible people who actually have direct knowledge of this.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, I mean, part of the reason why this documentary couldn't have been done 10 years ago is because there weren't nearly as many credible people. The things we've seen in the last decade and the testimony from people like in the Navy who've seen these phenomenon. I don't remember that happening before 10 years ago. It looks to me like the aliens kind of want us to know that they're here. It doesn't look like they're hiding it much anymore. And they may be saying, jesus Christ, these people are taking a long time to come around to what is fairly obvious, you know, and as I said to you on Real Time, I'm not that upset about it because obviously they have the capability to do great harm and they're not. They seem to be just monitoring. That could change.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. As the film, as people in the film talk about circumstances change. We've evolved technologically.

[Tom Scharpling]

Not with these lighters.

[Alex Dietrich]

Here's another one.

[Tom Scharpling]

I'm either the unluckiest person in the world who every time I try to get a simple Zippo lighter, I'm not trying to embarrass the Zippo company, but maybe there's like a really good version of this. I don't know. I do what I'm supposed to do. I put the thing in and that's what. And it works once at home, and then I do it here and it doesn't work. And you. If the aliens come, I would like to make this their first mission to get this fucking lighter.

[Alex Dietrich]

Improve the quality. Lighters.

[Tom Scharpling]

They're so cool looking and I like them. They just don't work for me.

[Alex Dietrich]

Hilarious.

[Tom Scharpling]

Maybe it's me, but. I'm sorry, what were you saying?

[Alex Dietrich]

No, a lot of people talk about how if more intelligent life is here and they haven't destroyed us, there hasn't been a War of the Worlds type moment, that that means that they're completely benign and there's nothing to worry about. And. And that's a nice positive thought for sure. And that'd be amazing if that's true. But I think a lot of the intelligence officials in my film went out of their way to say it's good to prepare for all scenarios. And the reality of it is we've evolved technologically at a really rapid pace over the last 80 years, but our morals haven't. We're still sovereign nations, we're still threatening nuclear war. We're a violent species.

[Tom Scharpling]

They may be in the process of.

[Alex Dietrich]

Deciding, but the point a lot of the people in my film make is that we're kind of like barreling towards a crossroads where we're reaching the point of either already being able to do what they do or soon being able to do what they do. And at that point they would have to contend with us. And we're a violent species. And so it kind of puts a lot in perspective. And I think one of the takeaways a lot of people told me they had from the film is man, Humanity's really gotta get their shit together and, you know, kind of come together on this because we're all in this situation together. And that's a tough task.

[Tom Scharpling]

That's not gonna happen.

[Alex Dietrich]

Probably not gonna happen, right?

[Tom Scharpling]

Totally not gonna happen.

[Alex Dietrich]

So then it's like, okay, well, then we gotta be prepared for all scenarios.

[Tom Scharpling]

The good news is, and again, I think I mentioned this to you. It reminds me of the movies where the bad guy or somebody like Sollozzo says, come on, if I wanted you to be dead, you'd be dead already. That's, I feel like where we are with the aliens right now.

[Alex Dietrich]

Possibly.

[Tom Scharpling]

That doesn't mean tomorrow it won't change. And I do think one compelling piece of evidence about the whole shebang is that they did seem to appear right after the nuclear age began. It seems like that triggered proactive.

[Alex Dietrich]

Proactively.

[Tom Scharpling]

You first see it, of course, the bomb is 1945, 1947 really is when we first. Roswell and stuff like that. To me, that's quite a coincidence. Or it's like, oh, they're watching this.

[Alex Dietrich]

Seems like. It seems like that's when they started paying attention.

[Tom Scharpling]

Let's pay attention. They've reached the nuclear threshold. Remember when we were nuclear, little green fellow people here on the planet. WAGNER we were crazy and we did crazy things and we had these bombs and it was polluting and it was just terrible. But let's keep an eye on them.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, I mean, look, the people in my film all feel. Everyone I discussed a specific point with felt strongly that once you crack the atom, it puts you on this trajectory towards doing what they do. And it's only a matter of time at that point. And so that's when they started monitoring us. The thing that the people I interviewed are more concerned about than possible intentions of non human intelligent life is what would happen if an adversary cracked this technology before we did and used it for bad. Because this technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we live and change things for the better. It could be the solution to the energy crisis. It could lead to interstellar travel. A lot of technological breakthroughs could come off the back of it. That could be great for us. But it could also be used as the most terrifying weapon of mass destruction. You could instantaneously deliver a nuclear weapon to the other side of the planet.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, I mean, maybe the tipping point is fusion. I mean, we've learned how to split the atom. That's nuclear. But that's not really where the gold is. The gold is in fusion, which they're getting closer. Fusion is the opposite. We're putting them together at temperatures that are hotter than the sun. So the challenge is not just doing that. They seem to be able to do that. But then how do you channel that? Like, how do you not. Whatever is holding this energy, how do you not melt that thing? You know, so plainly the aliens have this. Yeah. I mean, they have something that we don't have.

[Alex Dietrich]

An energy source that we haven't realized.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yes. That allows them. I mean, all the witnesses pretty much say some variation of, you know, the thing can hover for three hours and then just move at speeds we've never seen before or go, as you say, in the ocean without losing any speed. You know, there seems to be no element of friction there. They seem to be moving in a.

[Alex Dietrich]

Way that just defies physics as we know it, essentially.

[Tom Scharpling]

As we know it.

[Alex Dietrich]

That's the simplest way to say it. Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

So I can't help but think that is tied to fusion and maybe something beyond fusion, but that's our next moment in human history is fusion. And we're knocking on the doorstep, but we're still a very long way away.

[Alex Dietrich]

There's also a lot of forces working against technology like that coming to the forefront. I mean, look how we see it in the news this week, how significant oil is to the world. Right. The introduction of a new energy source would basically overnight destroy an entire marketplace that has driven the world for years.

[Tom Scharpling]

I'll say this for the Trump's move into Venezuela. I mean, I don't totally hate it. Some of it I do hate. But to the aliens who are worried that we are getting too advanced, I'm sure that was very reassuring. Not this guy. This guy still thinking about oil and still thinking about stuff like whatever he's thinking about, it's not. What do you think? What do you think Donald Trump knows about?

[Alex Dietrich]

So I think he's become very aware of the situation in the last few months, and I think he, behind the scenes, is pursuing the truth about the things he is in the dark on. I. I hope that he steps up this year and tells the world definitively that we're not alone in the universe, because he knows those base facts and he could share that with the world. And I think it would be the greatest moment a leader could possibly have. I mean, there's no bigger moment in the history of humanity.

[Tom Scharpling]

I don't think any of us have ever known him to ever not share. Like when he saw yesterday he put out these. He didn't do it yesterday, but they were talking about it yesterday on cnn, these text messages that the head of NATO, who used to be the. I think the president of Denmark had sent him. And they were very complimentary. You know, I mean, it's not a big secret that a great way to ingratiate yourself with our president is to be complimentary. And they were meant to be private. But of course, Trump puts them on truth social because, you know, here's a guy, an important guy, saying nice things about me. I'm just gonna put it out there. I mean, Kanye does the same. Expect a lot of the younger generation, don't expect anything to ever be private. They just don't have that same feeling. So just don't put it out there. But again, I don't remember President Trump ever really holding anything back. So I feel like if he's actively.

[Alex Dietrich]

Gathering information right now, that could be true.

[Tom Scharpling]

That absolutely could be true. I mean, he could be waiting for the right moment. This week's not the right week before the next election. The aliens are here. And if I'm not here to stop it, you know, I can see that.

[Alex Dietrich]

Look, I think it literally. In all seriousness, it would be the biggest moment a leader could ever have in human history. It's bigger than any huge presidential speech. Like, think about those great moments leaders have had in our history, like from Gettysburg Address to Kennedy space race speech, Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech. Whatever you put on the list, this would be bigger than that. And it's also arguably the most bipartisan moment you could possibly have. There's. This issue is the most bipartisan issue in politics right now. The leaders for both parties are aligned on wanting more disclosure and more aligned on that than anything else.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah. When I think about the famous New York Times headline, when we walked on the moon, I don't think they've ever had a bigger type face than not men walk on moon. You know, giant letters, picture.

[Alex Dietrich]

We are not alone.

[Tom Scharpling]

You know, what. How big type do you need for this headline? If there was definitive proof, you know, like, little green man arrives, says, take us to your leader. I mean, they don't have type.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean, I think it's just simply, we are not alone. And a US President stepping to the microphone and making that clear for the entire human population, it just would have so many huge.

[Tom Scharpling]

And it's your belief, I think, and many others, that the reason this really hasn't happened is because it would scare people.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, no, no. I think there's a lot of reasons. Like, we go into a Lot of reasons in the film, but those reasons have sort of changed over time. I think originally it was simply if you put yourself in the shoes of military intelligence officials in the 40s, and you realize this is real, you gotta find out a lot of answers to your own questions before you make it known. Right? And then I think they found out that this was happening in adversarial nations, too. And then it became like a Cold War dynamic of we gotta keep this secret because we don't want our enemies to know what we know and don't know. And one of the ways they kept it secret is they created the stigma around this topic that's revealed in my film. One of the senior CIA officials in my film says that elements of the intelligence community, including the CIA, created the stigma around this early on, late 40s, early 50s, to get people thinking. It's crazy. If you look into this, it's a kind of a genius way to get people to avoid, you know, asking questions. Right. And looking into it. And then that gets into the culture and it gets compounded over the years, then the stigma gets created. Then the stigma became a reason for people not to want to speak up about it because no one wanted their reputation ruined.

[Tom Scharpling]

But would there not be panic?

[Alex Dietrich]

I think at one point, people, early on, I think in the 40s and 50s, there was a general feeling amongst military intelligence people that knew about this that we need to learn a lot more about this before we tell the world there's a situation that we don't know anything about and we can't protect you from and cause panic. Right. But I think it's naive to think that in 2026, people are going to be jumping out of buildings if they find out that we're not alone in the universe.

[Tom Scharpling]

We're jumping out of buildings. But I can't imagine a lot of rednecks wouldn't be like, we got to kill these motherfuckers now while we got them in our sides. While we got the. We got the muscle, we got the armaments, we got everything we need. We got to kill these people. I can't believe there wouldn't be that faction in America.

[Alex Dietrich]

Look, there'll be all over the world. There'll be a lot of mixed responses, but ultimately, the reality of it is one of the big learnings from making this film is that we are in a race with adversarial nations, most notably China, to crack this technology. And we have a better chance of winning that technology, UAP technology, the technology at play. So the film Reveals that.

[Tom Scharpling]

You mean reverse engineering their craft?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, so the film reveals that.

[Tom Scharpling]

Do we have their crash?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, so yeah. So a number of the intelligence officials in the film reveal that there's a deeply hidden crash retrieval program in the U.S. there's also one of the China. Some of them have crashed.

[Tom Scharpling]

So they're not perfect.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, yeah. And we've retrieved some of that technology.

[Tom Scharpling]

They're aliens, they're not fucking gods. Right?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean that's just the fact. Yeah.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean they're dealing with.

[Tom Scharpling]

Because I've heard people say, well, if they're so advanced, how come they keep crashing their vehicles? Well, I don't think they keep crashing their vehicles.

[Alex Dietrich]

I think, you know, all technology has some kind of like either flaw or vulnerability.

[Tom Scharpling]

Right.

[Alex Dietrich]

And so one of the things that people in my film talk about is in the early days of our atomic weapons program, we realized an unintended consequence of testing was it could cause some of these UAP that we didn't know were there to crash. So there's been all these learnings over, over, over time of what caused these crash.

[Tom Scharpling]

I'm sure there is some. One reason why they have been monitoring us for so long is because they don't know about this planet. And they're finding out, they're gathering information. I mean if, I don't know if you.

[Alex Dietrich]

Or they've been here long before us.

[Tom Scharpling]

Or they have been here long before us. You know what nobody warns you about adult life? Dinner. Dinner. It shows up every night like a bill you Forgot to pay. 5 o' clock hits, you're tired, you're annoyed, and suddenly you're supposed to invent a meal like it's a fun hobby. Well, that's where hellofresh comes in. Here's the real problem. Dinner isn't about cooking. It's about the mental exhaustion of deciding what to eat when your brain is already closed for business. Well, HelloFresh removes that part entirely. Ingredients are pre apportioned, recipes are clear, and the whole thing takes about 30 minutes. No improvising, no spiraling. You get over 100 recipes every week. So you pick what sounds good, not what you can tolerate. Making portions are generous, meaning you're not hunting for snacks an hour later. I think the best part is the quality. Sustainably sourced seafood, antibiotic free chicken, produce that tastes like food. Yeah. More seafood options, tons of high protein meals, even GLP1 friendly choices. What you really get back is time, energy, the ability to sit down like a stage civilized person. What could be better than that? Go to hellofresh.com random10fm. Get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife. A 144.99 value on your third box offer valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one platform for building a website, which apparently we still need to do in 2026, because God forbid someone just believe you exist without seeing it on the Internet. Look, you don't need a tech team, you don't need to learn coding, and you won't have to hire some kid in a hoodie who charges you $10,000 to move a button three pixels to the left, thanks to their cutting edge templates and blueprint AI which asks a few smart questions and builds a site that actually fits what you're doing. If you're offering services, consulting, events, anything where people owe you money, Squarespace lets you book appointments, send invoices, and get paid in one place. No chaos, no chasing people down. And the built in SEO tools help people actually find you. Which is kind of the point. If you don't have a website by now, what are you doing? I have a site, for Christ's sakes. My other show has a site. This podcast has a site. And I'm sure the neighborhood dog down the street even has a website, or at least an Insta account. So if you've got a passion project, a business idea, or you just want to look more legitimate online, go to squarespace.com clubrandom for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code clubrandom to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Squarespace. Build something real. But if it's the reverse, if they're just discovering us and we're alarmed because they got the little beep on their phone that said, no, they went nuclear. Okay, we're gonna get down there and see what's going on. I mean, like in War of the Worlds, which is what I go by, that's my bible. No, I'm kidding. Because when has Scientology ever led us astray scientifically? But, you know, that is sort of based. That is the Scientology. I mean, I can see why Tom Cruise was attracted to do that movie, other than the fact that it's an awesome movie and Spielberg directed it. But it is about the cause. I think in Scientology, they believe that stuff was buried underground and then came up. And that's what happens in War of the Worlds. But as you remember in War of the Worlds there's no real ending to it. The aliens are totally kicking our ass and then they just die. And Morgan Freeman does the voiceover and everyone is a cohibit.

[Alex Dietrich]

That's also what happens at the end of Crystal Skull. Indiana Jones Crystal Skull. They find the UFO that was buried underneath the pyramid, rises up at the.

[Tom Scharpling]

End of the movie and dies.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, it just rises. It comes.

[Tom Scharpling]

Rises because at War of the World they just die because they got a virus.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

So it's really Covid. If they had just worn the masks. I'm always saying to everybody, let's go back to wearing masks. I'm kidding, of course.

[Alex Dietrich]

But going back to the thing that concerned everyone I interviewed was that if we as a nation don't take this more seriously and make it a real national priority, then we could wake up one day and find out that China beat us in this race and the consequences could be huge.

[Tom Scharpling]

And so what does that mean? China would be allied with the aliens.

[Alex Dietrich]

So a number of the officials in the film reveal that our country and Russia and China all have these hidden programs that are retrieving crashed UAP and trying to reverse engineer them. And it's a technology race. They refer to it as the Manhattan Project on steroids. And so the idea is here we have this stigma that originally was created to keep people from looking into this, and now it's kind of backfiring and that we're in a technology race now. And the majority of scientists in our country don't even know this is real. They don't know. It's a valid area of inquiry that.

[Tom Scharpling]

You get to something that I found so fascinating in the movie, which is the idea that a lot of what we know about all of this phenomenon is compartmentalized. Like the CIA knows this, and the Energy Department knows this, and the Defense Department knows this. And they don't necessarily share the information. And we gotta. I mean, to me this is a little like the Epstein files, except not underage girls, little green men. Okay? Like we want the files out, we want you to collate all the files. Cuz we saw with the Epstein thing. It was a shit show. It came out drip by drab, some of it was real. Then suddenly we got a million more.

[Alex Dietrich]

And you know, I mean, honestly the better of that.

[Tom Scharpling]

I feel like that's what's going on with this. Except again, not underage girls, little green men. And if we could just get all these agencies to share. Cuz you are all on the same team. Guys, we're all in the American government Share. Because that has to happen, I think, before they release it to the people.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, but honestly, the better analogy is the 9, 11 situation. Intelligence. The intelligence community wasn't sharing information in the most effective way, and there was intelligence gaps. And then this horrible intelligence failure happened and this attack happened, and we all dealt with the consequences. And then what happened after that? Everyone said, oh, this has to be course corrected. So we formed the Director of National Intelligence position as an answer to that.

[Tom Scharpling]

Right.

[Alex Dietrich]

And their sole job is to coordinate the intelligence community so information is actually shared. Right.

[Tom Scharpling]

All we did was create a giant, new, ridiculously large, unobservable, in many ways, bureaucracy.

[Alex Dietrich]

But the point is, history shows bad things happen when our intelligence community doesn't share information.

[Tom Scharpling]

I know, but with this situation, I remember my joke at the time that we created the Department of Homeland Security was, gosh, if we only had some sort of Central Intelligence Agency. You see my point? We already had it.

[Alex Dietrich]

But their job, they knew CIA's job was never to coordinate all of the various intelligence community elements. That was never their stated purpose. Whereas the Director of National Intelligence. That's their purpose.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah. And you know what? I gotta give them credit. I mean, something worked. Now, maybe it was just that the jihadists decided to take a break. I mean, they have been at it for over a thousand years. So, like, they played the long game. Maybe it was like, okay, we visit a painful chastisement on the infidel. Let's take a couple of decades off. That could be. I don't think that's it.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, I think we're putting resources towards this and it's working. Yes. And so if we put resources towards the UAP issue and we make the base facts known, a lot of great change will come out of that and the US Will lead in that technology race.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, I find it very interesting that your movie is called the Age of Disclosure, and Spielberg has a movie coming.

[Alex Dietrich]

Out called Disclosure Day.

[Tom Scharpling]

What is the key word here that we seem to be tracking? It would be disclosure. I mean, it seems like this is the issue now that we've. For a lot of people, we move past the question, is it happening? It's a little like climate change. There was a time when it was like, is it happening? Is it mad made? And then, you know, of course, there are stragglers who don't believe it is, but they're not credible people.

[Alex Dietrich]

You know, it's interesting. What was a turning point in that? Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, a documentary Right. How often it takes.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, I mean, certainly that came out, you know, I think 2002 or something. I feel like by the 90s, people were on the page of it's happening and it is man made, what to do about it. That's a debate we absolutely can and shouldn't be having. But there are still stragglers who don't believe in that as they will always be with this. There will always be stragglers. But basically you pass these tipping points where it's like evolution. 1859, Darwin put that out. It wasn't like in 1860. Everybody was like, oh, evolution. We all believe in that. It took a while before it's tested. People challenge it. And then it's like, okay, this is the reality. Let's go on to the next question. I feel like we should be onto the question of. Again, I don't think it's coincidence that this word comes up in both these films, disclosure. And I feel like when they look back now, the Spielberg movie comes out in June. I feel like, you know, you're gonna be the John the Baptist to this Jesus Christ of a movie, because it is Spielberg. It's something zillions of people are gonna see. It's about the same subject, but it's for the masses. Not that your movie didn't do great, but it's like this is now number.

[Alex Dietrich]

One best selling documentary ever on prime Video.

[Tom Scharpling]

Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are interested and people get it. And I feel like from the history major's point of view, the analogy is this. The Roman Empire was persecuting Christians, you know, feeding them to the lions. That old shit in the third century. Thirty years later, they were Christians, you know, they went from feeding them to the lions to, okay, now we are that. Yeah, one emperor declared it and then we all just fell in line. Maybe it took a few years, I'm sure, but I feel like that's where we are with this. Like it was a eye roll for a long time. Oh, aliens, UFOs. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. And maybe that's still gonna be the case. We don't know. Nobody knows. But I feel like it's passing that tipping point where if you're the person who really thinks we're alone in the universe, you're kind of on the side.

[Alex Dietrich]

Of not flat earthers and.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, yeah, flat earthers, right, exactly. You're kind of. Or global warming isn't, you know, I mean, Republicans were still saying that it wasn't real and it wasn't man made. Very recently, I Mean, certainly in the last 20 years, they were trotting out silly. There was one Newsweek story in the 70s about how the planet was cooling. Look, the planet's cooling, they used to say. And now. And it's like, okay, you know what? You can always convince a certain number of people. But I feel like this is where it's gonna go. And I feel like the big thing is gonna be this Spielberg movie.

[Alex Dietrich]

Everyone I interviewed was really clear with me that it's not a question as to whether this is real. That's. We're way past that. Every single person I interviewed made that very clear. Their educated opinion was, we are way, way past that. Now the question is, where are they from? What's their intention?

[Tom Scharpling]

Right?

[Alex Dietrich]

And can we as a nation crack this technology before an adversary does? And they all took that extremely seriously. And they thought. Everyone I interviewed thought that getting rid of the stigma in our country is a huge, huge hurdle to winning that technology race. We have to get rid of the stigma so that academia and the scientific community can take this seriously and know it's a valid area of inquiry and help us win this technology race. And they all thought that this documentary can play a major role in opening the public's eyes. And I heard that over and over from everybody from Rubio on down, and they were all very, very serious about it. I do think it's power movies, though, as you're talking about Steven's movie. You know, movies, you have a unique power to open people's eyes to thoughts.

[Tom Scharpling]

Absolutely do.

[Alex Dietrich]

I'm into this topic because my childhood was the 80s and early 90s, and my favorite movie since I was a little kid was Close Encounters. I grew up on Close Encounters. ET X Files was on television when I was in school. And Close Encounters made a huge impact on me. It made me curious about these big questions, made me curious about this topic. It presented it in a very grounded way. It's a very ahead of its time movie.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, I have always been a proponent of the idea that everything the movies depict then comes to life, which is why the fact that there are so many movies about post apocalyptic world, you know, after the war. After the war came and now it's a hellscape, it's the barren. And it's just, you know, Denzel and somebody else walking across a desert. You know, it's just terrible because I feel like I've just seen it too many times. Well, whatever they're predicting is going to come true and that. I mean, I remember seeing Minardi report a great Spielberg movie. And they had screens. They were just touching and moving things on the screen, which we all do a billion times a day now. But then it was like, wow. Or even flip phones in Star Trek, you know, I mean, lots of stuff.

[Alex Dietrich]

Now he's always forward thinking and covering things. That will come to be. Another great, great film from years ago that was ahead of its time was Abyss, with all the activity.

[Tom Scharpling]

James Cameron in the ocean. I mean, he loves the ocean. It was not a good movie.

[Alex Dietrich]

Oh, I liked it.

[Tom Scharpling]

I liked it a lot as movie making. I mean, I don't remember it that well. I remember being bored to tears in the theater. And I'm a big Cameron fan. I love Titanic.

[Alex Dietrich]

You watch it? It's a good one.

[Tom Scharpling]

Really?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. And Close Encounters I watch every few months.

[Tom Scharpling]

Is that about space people in the ocean?

[Alex Dietrich]

The Abyss is about non human intelligent life under the ocean. Oh, yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

And what's the spoiler alert? What's the end?

[Alex Dietrich]

Just, just, just the, the takeaway is that there is other life here and, and it's in the ocean. And a number of the people in my film go on the record about the UAP activity in our oceans. Even, you know, from senior members of Congress to intelligence officials, they talk about technology that's not from here, that's otherworldly, that has been seen coming in out of the ocean and into the ocean. And then in conversations I've had outside of the film, people have told me about activity that's been tracked by our submarines. That's just absolutely bonkers. Like massive crafts moving at crazy speeds under the water, going past our submarines. So there's a. There, there, there's a real situation.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah. If you were an alien and you wanted to hide here on the Earth, it's just.

[Alex Dietrich]

You do it in our ocean. Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

You do it because the ocean is very unexplored.

[Alex Dietrich]

It's like say.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah.

[Alex Dietrich]

In my film, Admiral Tim Gallaudet says that we have studied the surface of the moon in more detail than we have the bottoms of our oceans. And our Oceans are like 75%, 74% of our planet is ocean. Right.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, that's if you believe we went to the moon.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. But I do think, I really do think that going back to the power of movies, you know, I wouldn't have made this movie or been interested in this topic had I not, you know, watched Close Encounters countless times and had my curiosity piqued. And I think that, you know, my hope is there's people out there who start looking into this topic because they watch this documentary or because they watched Steven's movie in June and they start thinking about it differently, taking it seriously.

[Tom Scharpling]

So let's go through the movie and what they depicted and see if that's how it's really gonna happen. Close Encounters, we wanna communicate with the aliens and we do it through, as I recall, a synthesizer. You know, he's frequently playing this tune and then they play the tune back. Yeah, okay.

[Alex Dietrich]

It's like.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, so maybe it's that. Then there was a movie called, I think, called Arrival.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, it's a great movie too.

[Tom Scharpling]

That is a great movie.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, I think.

[Tom Scharpling]

I don't remember loving that one either.

[Alex Dietrich]

That's really good. Yeah. I feel like you gotta do a binge.

[Tom Scharpling]

I feel like you're interested in this topic.

[Alex Dietrich]

You gotta do a new binge.

[Tom Scharpling]

See, I'm just looking as a.

[Alex Dietrich]

You know, now that you've watched this doc, you gotta do a binge.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, okay. But in that one, I remember there was just a lot of the aliens writing in this big curlicue language on a screen. And it was like. It didn't look like anything we've ever seen, but it was some sort of.

[Alex Dietrich]

Writing, some sort of contact event, some sort of communication. Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

So how do you think it'll happen? How will we. I mean, shouldn't they know? With all their advanced knowledge, can't they just have a English to alien thing in their phone that.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean, you know, some of the people in my film talk about how there have been contact events. Some of the intelligence officials in my film talk about learning of an event that happened where UAP landed on a. On a military base and non human beings interacted with CIA and Air Force officials.

[Tom Scharpling]

When you see me, when you mean, say interacted, you mean dating? No, but what do you mean by interacting?

[Alex Dietrich]

They said they interacted. They communicated somehow. That's. That's what, you know.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, what's.

[Alex Dietrich]

The intelligent officials.

[Tom Scharpling]

They must. If they're. If they're testifying about this, what's the. Somehow.

[Alex Dietrich]

That was. That was all that was said. And they. And the intelligence official in the film talks about a conversation he had with President Bush 1 SR about this. And. Yeah, it's a fascinating part of the film. Haliman Air Force Base is the name of the film.

[Tom Scharpling]

I loved it. That Bush too. His comment was I ain't telling.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, that's one of the. That's.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean, that says a lot.

[Alex Dietrich]

That was one of the.

[Tom Scharpling]

I ain't telling.

[Alex Dietrich]

But that was one of the coolest.

[Tom Scharpling]

But Texas, if They try to mess with Texas. We're the point of the spear.

[Alex Dietrich]

What he talks about in that section of the film I think is fascinating. A bunch of the people I interviewed revealed that during Bush 2's administration, shortly after 911 he was contemplating going public with the base facts that he had learned that were not alone in the universe. And they held a multi day, I think it was two or three day think tank where they invited a couple dozen people to come and evaluate what the pros and cons would be. And they basically ranked, they were tasked with debating and then, and then applying a number to the impact. So on a scale of 1 to 10, like 10 being a bad impact, too much impact, 1 being minimal impact to every like vertical of society like religion, the economy, all these different areas they came up with. And a number of the people that were part of this think tank, they went into it excited about it and hopeful that it would bring about disclosure. And then they all came out on the other side deciding it would be a bad idea, that the time wasn't right for it. This was like right after 9 11. One of the people in that think tank is in my film. Dr. Hal Puthoff, the senior scientist for my film, worked on a lot of classified UAP programs.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well that wasn't Bush 1.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, it was 2.

[Tom Scharpling]

Bush 2.

[Alex Dietrich]

I was like 2, right, yeah. One was the one who talked about the hall.

[Tom Scharpling]

So this think tank was when Bush 2 was.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. And then they decided not to do it and not to go public with it.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well that was prudent to use the father's term. I mean not after 9 11. You know, like it's let's deal with the jihadists before we deal with the aliens.

[Alex Dietrich]

It's also come out recently that Cheney was very involved in covering this up. No longer around obviously.

[Tom Scharpling]

What are you saying something nefarious? That the aliens killed him because he knew too much?

[Alex Dietrich]

No, no, I'm saying maybe it'll lead to change that he's no longer around.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, I don't think it was them. He had a heart that plugged into wall. Okay, this guy was not well when he died.

[Alex Dietrich]

But no, I didn't mean like that. I mean he was involved in the decision to not have it go public.

[Tom Scharpling]

My guess is he would have had Halliburton digging on the planet X ray before they ever signed a deal. But not to speak ill of the dead, but.

[Alex Dietrich]

So what do you think will happen now? You've seen this documentary, you've see how the truth is starting to come out. What do you think?

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, again, I think the Spielberg movie is, I mean, it's Steven Spielberg. I think this will be sort of the ultimate moment in his amazing career because as we were starting to say, movies do move people. People are a mass. They are the masses. They're called the masses for a reason. They're not called the bunch of intellectuals. They're the masses. I love them. I'm not putting them down. But I'm just saying masses need to be moved by mass entertainment. And that has, you know, Hollywood, which I criticize a lot and they deserve it a lot. But Hollywood show business in general is responsible for societal change probably more than any other part of society I'm talking about.

[Alex Dietrich]

Couldn't agree with you more. And he's the greatest filmmaker of all time.

[Tom Scharpling]

He is, absolutely. I always say about him, he's known as the greatest filmmaker and he's still underrated.

[Alex Dietrich]

This episode is brought to you by FX's the Beauty Official podcast. Join host Evan Ross Katz on the Official podcast for FX's hottest new series the Beauty, taking you behind the scenes with its amazing stars as they discuss the show's most jaw dropping moments. Featuring Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher, Rebecca Hall, Bella Hadid, Meghan Trainor, Isabella Rossellini, Jessica Alexander and Ari Grayner. Search FX is the Beauty. Wherever you listen to podcasts, New year.

[Tom Scharpling]

Same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus fries and a medium soft drink for just $8 for limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California and for delivery. But like if you go back to Gentleman's agreement in 1947, which is about anti Semitism, which is back in style, but back then they were against it and they made movies like that. Racial issues, who's coming? Guess who's coming to dinner in 1967? Gay issues, AIDS, disabilities, nuclear energy, China syndrome. I mean, when Hollywood addresses an issue, it does change minds. And it's mostly been for the better. It's mostly been, you know, liberal people saying, you know what, let's move up on this now. You know, we entered a woke era where I think we went a few subway stops past where we should have gotten off on some things. But basically Hollywood has been a force for good in opening people's eyes to a lot of social issues that they need to have their eyes open to. And now I think it's, you know, if we can like step up and do our part, it will be this issue. It will Be technology, which really is the social issue of the day. Yeah, I know it is categorized differently as technology, but I mean, when AI is poised to take, you know, God knows how many jobs from people, not to mention transform life in every other way, it's a social issue. It, of course is a social issue. And you know, this. Look, I don't know what the aliens, I don't know what they think of AI, but I'm guessing that that's another trigger moment for them. Just the way the nuclear was. I mean, we got nuclear in 45, we got AI, we got ChatGPT on the phone in 2023 or 2022, something like that. Okay, that to me is another really watershed moment. And to them, you know, I'm guessing it's like, okay, as you said at the beginning of the show, we're getting, maybe we're threatening them a little bit, getting closer to parity with what they know. I think we're still a long way away. But of course, if you are prudent as aliens, I think we all know.

[Alex Dietrich]

Are we're getting to a level where they'll have to contend with us.

[Tom Scharpling]

They would have to contend with us.

[Alex Dietrich]

They have to deal with us. And they, you know, the, you know, I do think that, and I hope that the combination of my documentary, the Disclosure, and Steven's film Disclosure Day, you know, will reach the masses and impact the way the average person thinks about this topic.

[Tom Scharpling]

What do you think the aliens are thinking as they're obviously watching this right now because they obviously have the technology. AI has the technology to monitor everything. So we have it. They certainly have it. So somebody is monitoring this right now. Somebody or something. What do you think you're thinking about what we're saying? And before I let you answer, may I just say I have always felt that aliens were among the finest people in my district. Mr. Chairman, I have to go to another meeting now, but I just want to say they are the salt of the earth. I'm doing the speech from Godfather to. But really, what do you think they're thinking? Like bright guys. They get it about us.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean, obviously it's pure speculation. But the interesting thing about that question is my takeaway from making this film is that we're not dealing with one non human intelligent life. My takeaway is that there is a lot of intelligent life out there and that like humans, they probably all have different intentions and different points of view.

[Tom Scharpling]

You just opened up a can of worms. I'm going to have to have another drink. So, yeah, you're right. We're talking about.

[Alex Dietrich]

It's a singular force. It's like talking about the government as a singular thing when there's all these moving parts.

[Tom Scharpling]

And is there evidence of that? Like different aircraft, different bodies?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yes, yes. So one of the intelligence officials, they.

[Tom Scharpling]

Must be aware of each other.

[Alex Dietrich]

One of the really brave things someone said in my film, Hal Puthoff, who's, you know, considered a Graybeard in the intelligence community, he's worked on a lot of classified UAP programs. He says on camera that the recoveries have included the crashed UAP that have been retrieved. Those crash sites have included the bodies of non humans and that the bodies were not all the same type, implying.

[Tom Scharpling]

Different species, but could be different species who are working and living together.

[Alex Dietrich]

Sure, anything's possible. I mean, you're guessing.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean, certainly that's what's going on on every starship I've ever seen on television. I mean, from Star Trek to the Orville or any of those shows, there's always humans like Captain Kirk working with Vulcans like Mr. Spock. And then there's the robot guy and then there's the guy with the looks human, but she's really a hot chick and they just make her eyebrows look weird and she's got pointy something, but she's still a hot chicken and you know, just this, everything. So that could be the case or it could be. Because certainly they're working in concert. Certainly they are not beefing. Well, we would know that.

[Alex Dietrich]

Well, we don't. I don't, I don't.

[Tom Scharpling]

Come on.

[Alex Dietrich]

I don't think we would know.

[Tom Scharpling]

We would. If they were beefing right above us.

[Alex Dietrich]

Non human intelligent life that we're not fully aware of has conflict. I think it's naive to think we would understand that.

[Tom Scharpling]

Really? Yeah, but they wouldn't be trying to in some way defeat each other.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean, I think all possibilities are on the table. I really do. I think that what is really happening is probably scenarios that we can't even imagine.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, that's right. I agree.

[Alex Dietrich]

Like we're looking at this all through our lens. Yeah. Our lenses and what we understand.

[Tom Scharpling]

But do you think we'll catch up to that in your lifetime?

[Alex Dietrich]

No, no, I think the base facts. I think my film brings out the base facts. I mean, to be honest, I think this film is disclosure. This is 34 really high level military government intelligence officials breaking their silence on what they can lawfully disclose, telling you what they have become aware of, putting their reputation on the line to tell you the facts and let you know this is real. Here's the circumstances, here's how we got here. Here's the lay of the land. Just putting it all on the table. I think, you know, for optics that can be upped by a president stepping to the microphone and definitively saying it. But we already just got told the truth. You know, like, Rubio's one of the. You know, Rubio's on camera in that. In my film, more than 33 other people, right? 32 other people. And now he's our Secretary of State, our national security advisor. He's not a lunatic who said crazy things and then got pushed aside. He said very important, serious things, and then he got put in the second most powerful position on the planet.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, to be fair, there are lunatics in our government. He is not one of them.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, he's definitely not one of them.

[Tom Scharpling]

He is one of the more adults.

[Alex Dietrich]

He's a very thoughtful.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yes.

[Alex Dietrich]

And a serious person.

[Tom Scharpling]

No. I'm very glad he's there, because I don't know if you saw him standing behind Trump the other day when Trump was saying, we're taking over Venezuela, and he's got. Oh, Jesus, you know, and then, of course, he comes back the next day. It reminds me a little like Bush and Tony Blair. Bush would say something stupid, and then Tony Blair would translate it into English, and we'd all be reassured. And then Rubio comes out the next day. We're not taking over Venezuela. Okay? We're affecting the policy. And, you know, and that's okay. I'm glad there's adults, and I'm glad on this issue that he is one of them, because it is gonna take balls.

[Alex Dietrich]

It's one of the reasons why I do think that we might see the current president, not this week, not next week, but sometime in the near future, step to the microphone and make that statement. Because he's got Rubio behind him, and Rubio is so aware of the truth, and he's become even more aware of the truth now that he's the National Security advisor.

[Tom Scharpling]

I'm absolutely sure Trump will do the right thing with this, as long as it involves making money from crypto. Okay. As long as the disclosure will also involve a tremendous payoff to the family, because he does. He does remind me of a very corrupt sheriff who also does clean up the town. So places. Sometimes he does clean up the town.

[Alex Dietrich]

The payoff will be huge. I mean, I think that is a move that would be. You know, the response would be incredible. It would get so Much support around the world for someone to find a leader, you know, a leader, you know, of the free world, to step to the microphone and tell all of humanity the truth at once about the biggest cover up in the history of the world. I mean it's, it's, it'd be a pretty amazing moment. So I do hope it happens.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, I mean that's a very optimistic view that people would take it with, you know, such aplomb. Maybe they will again. I feel like a lot of the reason why they haven't disclosed stuff is because they do fear panic. The government does that a lot. Well, some people think of how they overreacted to Covid and lied about certain. No, I'm not. Please don't start with the anti vaxxer. I'm glad we got the vaccine and it saved millions of people's lives. I didn't want it, okay, said my thing. But the government did suppress a lot because they were just afraid that people, if they heard the wrong information, which wasn't always wrong, they would do the wrong thing. They don't really trust the people. So whether they will trust them with an issue like this, I do think that's a bigger part of it than you seem to want to know.

[Alex Dietrich]

I think it's a huge, I think.

[Tom Scharpling]

It'S a huge problem. Oh, you do?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. So look, like I said earlier, this technology, one of the takeaways from making this film became very clear to me that this technology that UAP have, the technology that make UAP work, that technology can be used to revolutionize the way we live or it can destroy everything. You could literally, I mean, just to say it clearly, it can be used to instantaneously deliver a nuclear weapon to the other side of the planet. That is the most terrifying thing of all time, right? And so if you, if you make that technology public and this new energy source public, people could weaponize it. So yes, 100%. Everyone I interviewed talked about how that is the humanitarian issue that we face and it's held back sharing this for a very long time. And the only way forward to make it public and get those benefits would be to open up some of it, the base facts about it, and treat it like we treat nuclear technology. That became a humanitarian issue. Nuclear technology is known. We know we use it for good. And we also know that nuclear weapons exist. The average person is not told about the capabilities of nuclear weapons, the vulnerabilities, how many we have, how many are being made, where they're stored.

[Tom Scharpling]

No, we know that.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, we Don't. There's tons of information about nuclear weapons that are classified.

[Tom Scharpling]

Okay, we know how many we have. It's in treaties. I could tell you how many we have.

[Alex Dietrich]

I don't think that information's all out there, to be honest. But the.

[Tom Scharpling]

But you have. No but. You're not. You're just. You're just saying that you don't have any. You don't have any reason to say that. And I don't think.

[Alex Dietrich]

Well, this analogy has been made to me, has been made to me by a number of intelligence officials and government officials, how that is the only actual reference point for how to handle this and make it a humanitarian issue, you know, use the technology openly for good.

[Tom Scharpling]

And yes, I'm just saying, when it comes to, like, knowing how many nuclear weapons we have, we do know. And we do know what they can do. I mean, we've been trying to reduce the number for decades and decades. Some people have made some progress. We used to actually have more. We still have way too many. I mean, we have enough to, like, destroy the planet a zillion times over, so what's the point? But, you know, there was a time when we and the Soviet Union each had something like 30,000, 30,000 nuclear weapons. I mean, what would it take to just create a total nuclear winner? Probably less than 100.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean, so what was the point of 30,000? So they got it down. But it's still. I don't know what it is now, 10,000 or something, but it's a crazy number still. But we do know not everything is a giant secret. It doesn't matter.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, I think there's a lot regarding nuclear weapons that is classified, but maybe.

[Tom Scharpling]

I'm sure it is.

[Alex Dietrich]

But the point they're making is I.

[Tom Scharpling]

Don'T want Joe Blow to know where they all are.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, the point they're making is, like, to get the benefit of this technology, you have to make a lot of this public. But there's a downside of that because bad actors could use that information to create weapons of mass destruction. And so that's this humanitarian issue that exists right now. That is a real hurdle.

[Tom Scharpling]

But we have had the ability to destroy the world since 1945. I mean, that's really the big changeover point in history. Not this with the aliens. This will be bigger in different ways. But, yeah. Could they wipe us out? Yes. But we've had the ability, as we never had before 1945, to wipe out ourselves before that it was always, well, you know, that's a thing God will do or he won't do. You know, God will come, Jesus is going to come down and you know, they're going to kill Everybody except the 144,000 Jews. They get grandfathered into heaven and whatever that bullshit is. But now we really do. I mean, mankind has. What is he saying? What does Oppenheimer say? He said we have become the destroyer of worlds. Yeah, the destroyer of worlds. I mean, that's a sea change. And again, I think that's what alarmed the aliens because maybe they, I don't know what other planets are like or where they're from or whether they, they're eyeing this as some sort of great place or some.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean, there's a lot of what ifs. I mean, like, here's a what if. What if this trajectory we're on technologically was a trajectory that another species or another form of humanity was on somewhere else and it led to destruction. You know, and they're, they're watching us to see if history's gonna repeat itself. You know, are we on the same trajectory that other people have been on in the past? Who knows?

[Tom Scharpling]

But I'm just saying, I mean, people have always talked about Earth like it's the Goldilocks planet. And when you look at other planets, they are awful, desolate. I mean, I've done two very funny, I must say, editorials about how silly it is for us and Elon Musk in particular to be so all head up on getting to Mars. Mars, like, how bad would we have to rat fuck this planet where it was worse than a place that's 270 degrees below zero, has no air, has six month giant dust storms. You have to live underground because of the radiation. I mean, how bad would it have to get? Every planet looks like a horrible shithole. So like if I was an alien, I'd be like, whoa, this place has Cabo, you know, this place has beaches and it's balmy and it's nice. Now maybe that doesn't affect them, but maybe it does. That I think, could be the fact that we're so attractive, I mean, makes them want to rape us. Stumped you on that one, Doc, huh?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. I mean, I personally think Musk knows a lot more about this situation, Elon. I think he knows a lot more about this situation than do tell than he has talked about. How does he know it's impossible to have the level of clearances he has and operate in space and not be aware of These facts.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean, really.

[Alex Dietrich]

There are numerous NASA astronauts, highly respected NASA astronauts who have come back and talked about UAP activity they saw while in space.

[Tom Scharpling]

Right.

[Alex Dietrich]

There is a number of. There's a lot of activity that's been documented in space. A number of the intelligence officials I interviewed talked. Talked to me about it. I had a section that was gonna be about this in the film. I just cut it for time. Cause I had to get this thing under two hours. But if I put everything in there I wanted, it would.

[Tom Scharpling]

Director's.

[Alex Dietrich]

Well, the whole thing was a director's cut. Because an independent film, there is. There's no studio.

[Tom Scharpling]

No, but I mean, director's cut, meaning make a longer version just like we're doing. This is a longer version of what we started on.

[Alex Dietrich]

I might make a sequel. I might make a sequel. There's been seen a lot of exciting.

[Tom Scharpling]

Maybe the aliens could partner with it, just provide some of the financing.

[Alex Dietrich]

That'd be nice.

[Tom Scharpling]

You know, they must be flush.

[Alex Dietrich]

I've thought about it. I've thought about a sequel. We'll see. We'll see what happens.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, let's see what happens.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. I want to see what happens inside of government. I put things in motion right now.

[Tom Scharpling]

The Spielberg movie. The Spielberg movie is going to be very good for you and for this idea of getting. I mean, just a lot more people are going to be asking the question that you are prompting them to ask. That needs to be, you know, fairly settled, as we said, in the way that evolution was at some point settled. Climate change at some point was settled. Let's move on to the next realistic question.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

Which, as you say, is who are they? What do they want?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

And, you know, and are. And how do we communicate with them?

[Alex Dietrich]

And is the U. S. Leading in this technology race? That's super important, you know.

[Tom Scharpling]

And if they say, take us to your leader, who do we say is our real leader? Because we. I mean, come on. We don't want to. We don't want to take them there because he'll show them the ballroom. It'll be all about the ballroom. I know you came a long way, but I just want to say I.

[Alex Dietrich]

Want to see it happen. I want to see him and Rubio step to the microphone and tell us the truth. That's really truly what I want to see happen. And, you know, well, he's got the.

[Tom Scharpling]

Balls to do it. I'll give him that.

[Alex Dietrich]

You know, in the movie, we put the Kennedy space race speech, key part of it, where he says that technology has no conscience of its own. It's up to mankind whether they use it for good or for bad. And that is why, to quote Kennedy, he said, that's why it's imperative the US Help lead the way so they can be a part of the decision to use space technology for good. And he compares it to nuclear technology. He's like, space technology, like nuclear technology, has no conscience of its own. And this is that situation on steroids. And so I do think it calls for a leader to step up and say that. Say that.

[Tom Scharpling]

Oh, it definitely does.

[Alex Dietrich]

This technology could be used for good, could be used for bad. The US Wants to help make sure it's used for good, and we're gonna put our resources and our brain power towards it. That would rally academia, the scientific community. It'd be amazing.

[Tom Scharpling]

If they do say, take us to your leader, and that is Donald Trump. I mean, he is the President of America, and that is the leader of the free world. If they're going to base their ideas about how we all are, I mean, you know, he's got some points that aren't completely horrible, but, I mean, there's a lot there. There's a lot there that's gonna make them go, what the fuck have we gotten us into here? I mean, I don't. I wouldn't want them to think we're that narcissistic. I wouldn't want them to think we're that corrupt. You know, I mean, I feel like he really does want to clean up the town. He does want to be the hero sheriff who cleans up the town. And I'm not going to lie and say that there's things that don't need cleaning up. I mean, the borders were too open. You know, colleges are crazy, out of control. I could go on, but I would hate the aliens to base their judgment on us. Based on how he has handled these issues, even when he identifies. You know, I don't want to put tariffs on spacecraft. You know, I mean, just. It just wouldn't be a good look for humans. I mean, I don't know who the human is. I would like for them to see.

[Alex Dietrich]

I would imagine that we're viewed as a whole. That's my takeaway. I think that humanity is viewed as a whole. Like, we're all in this together, and if. And the reality of it is, you know, like, not a great look, that Putin's invading sovereign nations. Right? Not a good look.

[Tom Scharpling]

That would be another guy. I would not want them to base. I would rather them base us on Trump. Than Putin. Okay. I mean, there are worse guys. I mean. Yeah, but. Okay, so.

[Alex Dietrich]

But do you think. Here's the other thing. Like, you just gotta also think about all the technology, technological breakthroughs that could come out of this. There's a scene, part of my Rubio interview that ended up getting cut out for time was he spent a few minutes talking, making the point that there were like 35,000, I think it was maybe 32,000 really significant inventions that came off the back of the space race. Right. It was a single mission, get to the moon. But all these other inventions came off the back of that technology race that impact our life every day. And his point was. We don't know, Tang, I remember you meant. Yeah, you said, but there's a lot. There's a lot of things and stuff that has helped make progress in the medical field.

[Tom Scharpling]

Gps. Didn't we get that from this?

[Alex Dietrich]

I think so. I think so. I don't. To be honest, I don't remember. But his point was, we don't know what's going to come off the back of taking this more seriously and putting the right brain power and resources towards this. And, you know, it's foolish to rule out the fact that it might change our lives for the better. You know, we don't know.

[Tom Scharpling]

It might.

[Alex Dietrich]

So my hope is that that happens.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean, to quote every invader ever. Resistance is futile. Resistance is futile. I mean, if they want to kick our ass, I'm sure they can. So, I mean, probably best to make friends with Keanu Reeves like that and.

[Alex Dietrich]

Just get our shit together as a species, you know?

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah, that's not gonna happen because we're so divided. I once did a whole thing about this, like, when I was a kid, and they said, well, mankind would unite if there was an attack from Mars.

[Alex Dietrich]

That's that Reagan speech. Remember, Reagan gave that speech in the U.N. he says, I often think that nothing would unite all of humanity and make us see what we have in common.

[Tom Scharpling]

They would not. It would not happen. As soon as the aliens landed, the Republicans and the Democrats would try to get them to be on their side against the other party.

[Alex Dietrich]

This reminded me of another funny. Actually, probably the only funny thing said in my documentary. Rubio says, this is not a partisan issue in our country. And then he slides in, at least not yet. And I think he's right that eventually disclosure will happen on a bigger level, and then we'll find some sort of partisan divide.

[Tom Scharpling]

Candace Owens, the day after they land is not going to be saying, you know what? Let's all get together people. No, she's gonna say some crazy shit and there's gonna be 5 million people who see it and follow that. And Tucker Carlson is gonna be doing that same shit. And there's gonna be people on the left, not as crazy, but crazy also who are gonna do stuff like that. I just don't see that as our saving grace. Okay, so before I forget, I wanna. Because the one issue I wanna get to only because I know someone who had an experience. You mentioned contact before and now. Someone who actually feels like they saw something on the ground. You know, men in black kind of stuff, which we haven't talked about yet.

[Alex Dietrich]

They thought they were abducted or they just saw something.

[Tom Scharpling]

No, no, no. Not abducted. Just went out to the woodshed late at night and opened the door and there was obviously something there that was not a bobcat.

[Alex Dietrich]

Wow. Where?

[Tom Scharpling]

I can't say. I can't say anything more.

[Alex Dietrich]

Sworn to secrecy.

[Tom Scharpling]

This person is very. It spooked him. And he's not an easily spooked person. But, yes, I'm guessing he's not the only one who has such an experience.

[Alex Dietrich]

I've heard from a lot of people ever since I. Before the movie came out, when I put the trailer online in January last year, I started. People started reaching out to me. Very credible people. Some Hollywood folks, like filmmakers, who have. A filmmaker who won Best Picture, reached out to me to share the story of something he saw.

[Tom Scharpling]

I don't know if Hollywood and credible are the two. Well, this one did you want to put together.

[Alex Dietrich]

This particular person was very credible.

[Tom Scharpling]

No. There are some senators.

[Alex Dietrich]

There's a senator who's never spoken up publicly about this topic, ever. He reached out to talk about something him and his son witnessed on a fishing trip. He was like, I'm really glad you're getting this movie out there. People need to learn there's more out there than us. And that was a wild conversation.

[Tom Scharpling]

What happened on the fishing trip?

[Alex Dietrich]

They were on a fishing trip out in open water and they saw a giant craft right above their heads. That's all he told me. But super serious guy. I'd never spoken to him prior. He reached out.

[Tom Scharpling]

That you hear a lot. I'm talking about.

[Alex Dietrich]

I mean, that's pretty extraordinary.

[Tom Scharpling]

It's very extraordinary, but it's still a little bit removed from actually being here in some sort of form on Earth that you hear a lot that I really don't doubt anymore. There's just too many sightings of that where they're observing from close quarters. But not here.

[Alex Dietrich]

So this friend of yours saw a being?

[Tom Scharpling]

A being?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yes.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. I mean, one of the intelligence officials in the film goes. You remember the guy, Dre Stratton, who I talked about earlier? He goes on record in the film saying that he has seen a non human being with his own eyes. And well, if we have the corpses.

[Tom Scharpling]

Right, that. Is that in dispute anymore?

[Alex Dietrich]

I don't.

[Tom Scharpling]

I don't think so. You don't think so? No, we have alien corpses.

[Alex Dietrich]

Numerous very senior intelligence officials have gone on the record saying that.

[Tom Scharpling]

And people have said. I mean, I know people in the movie that you made say if you saw what I saw with my own eyes. Right?

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

I'm assuming that's what they're talking about. They've seen an actual body.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

You know, I mean, it's one thing.

[Alex Dietrich]

People have testified under oath to Congress saying this. You know, David Grush, one of the intelligence officials who testified, he talked about non human bodies that have been recovered.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean, it makes a difference when. Now, this is not firsthand because I haven't seen it, but it makes a difference to me when somebody very close to a situation says they saw something. Like, to give an analogy, that's ridiculous. But I remember having a discussion a long time ago, some bunch of people sitting around and somebody said Tom Cruise was gay, which was a rumor that was going around for a while. Cause they say about everybody who's successful and somebody who is a. Another movie star said, I saw Tom Cruise with my own eyes fuck a girl. And this is a long time ago when they were very young. But it was like it always.

[Alex Dietrich]

Did you ask him why he was speaking?

[Tom Scharpling]

It always stuck with me, you know.

[Alex Dietrich]

What were you watching?

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, you know What? When you're 22 and you're on a movie set, it could happen. I'm not saying he watched it, watched him do it. I'm saying he saw with his own eyes Tom Cruise. Okay, so like that to me, always said, like, okay, you know what? However many times you want to convince me that so and so is gay or so and so is gay, you know, at the end of the day, you're just fucking pulling shit out of your ass anyway.

[Alex Dietrich]

Look, I really.

[Tom Scharpling]

As far as this goes, like, if somebody credible says something like this, it just adds a lot of weight for me.

[Alex Dietrich]

To me, that's the greatest evidence, because I've said this on a bunch of interviews I've done about the movie. I full heartedly believe you could put a 4K video taken from a military base of a UFO over a nuclear weapon site, and half the human population will say it's fake. It's made by AI Some Hollywood producer did it. That's where we're at as a society.

[Tom Scharpling]

No, I get it.

[Alex Dietrich]

But people putting their reputation on the line. I mean, a number of the people in my film intend to run for president one day. You know, a number of the people in my film are still actively working in the intelligence community. These are people who have a lot to lose by destroying their reputation with bullshit.

[Tom Scharpling]

But I want to go deeper, a little into this thing about the Men in Black aspect of it, because that doesn't. It seems to be the one part you don't really get into too much.

[Alex Dietrich]

Like, I mean, we talk about the Legacy Program. A number of people in my film reveal that the program that has been keeping this all away from the public is referred to as the Legacy Program. In the film, they break down which elements of government are in it. The CIA, the Air Force, Department of Energy, and major defense contractors make up this program called the Legacy Program. I personally think that when people have historically referred to, quote, unquote, men in black, they're referring to people who have been affiliated with the Legacy Program. That's what I think.

[Tom Scharpling]

But I'm asking about the idea that there are beings say they are able to take human form. I personally don't think they're there doing that right now. I think that's a movie.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. I don't. I've never heard that.

[Tom Scharpling]

Okay. But that would be the next step for them to do. I mean, if they wanted to really get up close and personal. I mean, certainly that's Men in Black. That's also the movie. You know, what's the. They redid it with Nicole Kidman. You know that.

[Alex Dietrich]

Body Snatchers.

[Tom Scharpling]

No, it's the Body Snatchers. Yes, exactly. Body Snatchers. I. I think that's science fiction, quite frankly.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah, I think so.

[Tom Scharpling]

And it. It sort of hurts the cause when people go to these places.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

Maybe where we're not yet.

[Alex Dietrich]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tom Scharpling]

But the idea that they would want to have some sort of presence actually on the ground, it's not crazy to me, because wouldn't you want to. Do you think you can really get every bit of information you need from hovering in a spacecraft? I mean, at some point, don't you have to sort of, like, get a little more up close and personal with planet Earth and the people in it before? I mean, how did they get the people. They must have landed at some point. If. What do you Think about what was the book Communion, which was the big book.

[Alex Dietrich]

I didn't get into abductions in the film. Cause I thought, you know, I was making this film for the masses. Right. For your average person who hasn't already gone down the rabbit hole and kind of been convinced. But this is supposed to be a very digestible, accessible film. Right. I didn't get into that. Cause there's a bridge.

[Tom Scharpling]

Communion.

[Alex Dietrich]

I think it's a bridge too far.

[Tom Scharpling]

If people. You did the whole thing.

[Alex Dietrich]

No, for my film, I thought it was a bridge too far. I do think there's a. There, there. I have talk a number of people who.

[Tom Scharpling]

I mean, if people don't remember what Communion was, it's a book that Whitley Strieber, I think, was the author and what it basically was. I'm really, you know, back of the envelope here. But a lot of people had a very, very similar experience. That's why he calls it Communion. And when you ask them, I think independently, but certainly in a group, what was what happened? They just had this experience. It involved someone and they kind of describe him the same way, like four foot tall, the almond eyes. You know, it's the classic.

[Alex Dietrich]

I interviewed military personnel, like real people with great resumes who had experiences on military bases and then claim that they were abducted. I interviewed them and it's very compelling to hear them talk. And people who don't know each other having similar stories. It's extremely compelling.

[Tom Scharpling]

But why do you think they all look. I mean, they all say like four or five foot tall. Like.

[Alex Dietrich]

Well, they don't all say that. To be clear. They, they, they. There's. There's different. There's a few different.

[Tom Scharpling]

They all did in Communion. That's. That seemed to be. Maybe that was just the species that was at the time.

[Alex Dietrich]

Well, in that book, that's what they talk about.

[Tom Scharpling]

But I mean, if they really are that advanced, wouldn't they be taller? I mean, they must know that everybody. Swipes left on any.

[Alex Dietrich]

There's a few different. There's a few different types of being that are described regularly by people who say they've been abducted. If you want to go down a really interesting rabbit hole, there's a famous psychiatrist who's passed away. He died in a horrible accident. But his name was John Mack and he was the head of Child psychiatry at Harvard.

[Tom Scharpling]

And you say it was an accident?

[Alex Dietrich]

I do believe it was an accident. He was riding his bike and he got hit by a car, but I.

[Tom Scharpling]

Think he got hit by a spaceship riding his bike.

[Alex Dietrich]

But you should read his books. He was a very straight laced psychiatrist. He was at the time he was the most famous child psychiatrist in the world. And he started seeing some patients who had claimed to be abducted. And he at first thought maybe they just, you know, were crazy people. And then he started to go down the rabbit hole a little more and he started to believe that what these people say they experienced, they really did experience. He started finding all these commonalities, people that had no relationship to each other.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, that was what was compelling about that book. I'm not saying I'm 100% believing it, but I do remember it at the time and I do remember a lot of people talking about it. And it was, to say the least, odd. Now there are odd psychological phenomenon that do happen here on earth. Yeah, but it was odd that so many people would have such a similar memory of something. And it was a vague memory. They, you know, they seem to have been abducted. If this is the story, they came back and it was like, boy, my ass is sore.

[Alex Dietrich]

Not everyone, not everyone. That's a. I've actually interviewed a lot of people who say they abducted that did not have that experience. But it did happen to some people.

[Tom Scharpling]

Okay, well, let's just say the good looking ones, they, you know, either the aliens abducted me or there was something at John Waters after Halloween party. No, but you know, it just seemed like there was.

[Alex Dietrich]

This is why I didn't include it because it's a slippery slope to someone not taking it serious. And you know, but I take everything serious. I think there's a there, there, as bizarre as that is.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, I feel like it's moved in phases. I feel like there was the Roswell phase and then there was a phase where they seemed to be. And this also is what's the Close Encounters. That seems to be that phase where they were more. They were interested in getting up close and personal and they did need to find out what a human body was like. And maybe that is what the anal probes were all about.

[Alex Dietrich]

Well, I mean. And a moment in Close Encounters that most people forget about is at the very end when the craft lands and the doors open, people walk off of it.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yes, pilots.

[Alex Dietrich]

Air Force pilots from the 50s or the 60s.

[Tom Scharpling]

Right.

[Alex Dietrich]

That haven't aged a day.

[Tom Scharpling]

Right.

[Alex Dietrich]

And I think he put that in the movie because he knew that the abduction situation is a real situation and wanted to at least address it a little bit. But did it in a way genius Spielberg way where a lot of people don't even pay attention to It. They just. The whole build up to the craft landing was enough for them. And, you know.

[Tom Scharpling]

Well, he put that in a movie because he works in Hollywood. And in Hollywood, if you say haven't aged the day, you got me.

[Alex Dietrich]

All right. I think a lot. It's fascinating stuff, man.

[Tom Scharpling]

This is fascinating stuff. And I think you're doing a great job getting it out there. It's important work. I think you will be remembered for your important work.

[Alex Dietrich]

I appreciate you.

[Tom Scharpling]

Yeah.

[Alex Dietrich]

You know, paying attention to.

[Tom Scharpling]

Oh, no, no, no.

[Alex Dietrich]

Using your platform. I'm a realist into this topic.

[Tom Scharpling]

You know, I take shit from both sides because people, they say they want honesty, they don't.

[Alex Dietrich]

You're from Jersey like me.

[Tom Scharpling]

I'm from Jersey like you.

[Alex Dietrich]

So that's. That's not gonna be Club Random.

[Tom Scharpling]

All right, pal?

[Alex Dietrich]

All right.

[Tom Scharpling]

Thank you.

[Alex Dietrich]

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

[Tom Scharpling]

All right.

[Alex Dietrich]

Good Pinot.

[Tom Scharpling]

Next one now. Oh, no, that's the one.

[Alex Dietrich]

I love this pad you got here.

[Tom Scharpling]

Oh, thanks.

[Alex Dietrich]

Club Random. New Year, New Me. Cute. But how about New Year, new money? With Experian, you can actually take control of your finances. Check your FICO score, find ways to save and get matched with credit card options it offers, giving you time to power through those New Year's goals. You know you're going to crush. Start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO scoring model offers an approval not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply subject to credit check, which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details. Experian.