Part Two: Mysterious CIA Medical Cases: Stanford Professor Garry Nolan on UAP Contact, Energy Weapons, Havana Syndrome, and How Alien Life Might Really Look

Summary

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Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown

Episode: Part Two: Mysterious CIA Medical Cases: Stanford Professor Garry Nolan on UAP Contact, Energy Weapons, Havana Syndrome, and How Alien Life Might Really Look

Date: January 28, 2026
Guest: Dr. Garry Nolan (Stanford Professor, Pathologist)

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Overview

In this episode, Mayim and co-host Jonathan Cohen continue their conversation with Dr. Garry Nolan, exploring his unique involvement in the investigation of mysterious medical cases (such as Havana Syndrome), the analysis of anomalous metals possibly linked to UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), and the potential nature and intentions of advanced non-human intelligences. Dr. Nolan shares his rigorous scientific approach, personal experiences with the unexplained, his efforts to bring legitimacy to UAP research, and philosophical insights on humanity’s place in the cosmos.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Analyzing Anomalous Materials

[03:10 – 13:13]

• Scientific Approach: Dr. Nolan emphasizes his methods are data-driven, not driven by conclusions. He analyses supposed fragments from events like Ubatuba, Council Bluffs, and Roswell.
• Techniques:
  • Uses high-precision instruments like mass spectrometry and atomic probe tomography to analyze tiny samples — sometimes as small as a grain of sand.
  • Example: Ubatuba fragment analysis revealed isotope ratios for silicon and magnesium “way off” from terrestrial norms, suggesting unusual processes or origins.
• Interpretation & Skepticism:
  • While recognizing highly pure silicon or shifted isotopic ratios as unusual, he avoids jumping to "extraterrestrial" conclusions, keeping scientific rigor.
  • Dr. Nolan notes:

    "It comes back to my big push that it's. It's the data, not the conclusion." [12:50]

2. The Bismuth-Magnesium Layered Sample

[17:58 – 19:08]

• Layered Structure:
  • Focus on unusual layering of materials such as bismuth and magnesium, possibly exposed to high heat or pressure.
  • Traditional explanations (e.g., missile casings) are dismissed:

    "Sean [Kirkpatrick] claims it's from a missile casing. Well, I mean, Sean, nobody makes missile casings like this." [18:48]

• No “Smoking Gun”:
  • Dr. Nolan reiterates there isn't yet unequivocal proof, only intriguing anomalies.

3. The Soul Foundation

[19:09 – 23:36]

• Purpose:
  • Co-founded to provide a serious, academic platform for research and discussion about UAPs and related phenomena, countering the stigma and circus-like atmosphere of some UFO conferences.
  • Promotes rational, evidence-based dialogue among scientists and interested laypeople.
• Academic Integrity:

  "If we were to hold...symposium or create...communities where scientists could talk...and just rationalize it." [19:44]

• Dealing with Skeptics:
  • Criticizes rhetorical tactics by skeptics/debunkers (specifically referencing Mick West), who stifle productive discussion.

4. Nature of Advanced Intelligences: Avatars, Drones & the "Zoo Hypothesis"

[23:36 – 27:59]

• “Avatar” Theory:
  • Suggests advanced intelligences would use intermediaries or drones rather than expose themselves (as humans wouldn’t walk into dangerous unknowns).

  "Who wants to walk into the middle? We're a bunch of angry monkeys...you would use intermediaries of some kind." [24:39]

• Patience and Evolution:
  • Hypothesizes that truly advanced civilizations could afford to be patient, observing humanity as we evolve.
  • Compares it to Zoo Hypothesis:

    “If there's something here, it clearly is...much older civilizationally than we are...If I were doing it...I could be patient.” [26:16]

5. Personal Experiences with the Unexplained

[28:57 – 35:54]

• Childhood Visitation:
  • Describes an incident (~1967) where he experienced “little guys” in his room, and associated sleep paralysis, only later seeing similar imagery in books.

  "I woke up...I saw little guys in my bedroom...I remember not being able to move. And so people would call that sleep paralysis." [29:04]

  • Didn't share the experience for decades — later considered Jungian archetype as an explanation.
• UFO Sighting as a Paperboy:
  • Spotted a silent, unexplained object with lights passing overhead as a teenager; estimates 30–40 feet in diameter.
  • Takeaway: Considers others’ experiences credible, doesn’t jump to conclusions, values the collected pattern of anecdotes.

6. Collective and Individual Experiences

[35:54 – 38:19]

• Mass Sightings (Ariel School, Zimbabwe):
  • Mayim references the 1994 case where 60 children report identical UFO encounters; Dr. Nolan underscores that mass fabrication is highly unlikely.
• Are Some People “Chosen” to Witness?
  • Rejects the "chosen" notion as narcissistic. Prefers the idea that those who can see "data off the curve" are more likely to notice anomalies.

7. Scientific Mindset vs. Debunking

[38:19 – 40:25]

• Open-minded Skepticism:
  • Good scientists are always skeptical—even of their own data. Emphasizes the harm of cherry-picking and popularity contests.
  • On debates:

    "I was born a skeptic or I was trained to be a skeptic. I'm skeptic of my own ideas." [39:47]

8. Are We At Risk?

[40:25 – 43:13]

• No Imminent Threat:
  • Dr. Nolan is optimistic—sees no reason to believe that non-human intelligences (if present) threaten humanity.

  "There's really. Apart from the ecosphere, which we're doing...our best to destroy...There's nothing here that they can't get in a thousand other places." [41:38]

• On Worrying About Apocalypse:
  • Suggests any truly advanced civilization could have wiped out humanity easily long ago if they wished.

  "All it would take...find a big rock, point it our way...and that's the end of life..." [43:03]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Isotope Anomaly:

  "The isotope ratios of the silicon were wrong. They're way off." – Garry Nolan [09:50]

• On AI Avatars:

  "We're a bunch of angry monkeys...Would you walk into an Amazonian tribe still known to cannibalize?" – Garry Nolan [24:39]

• On Personal Humility:

  "I would rather [say] if you have a brain state...that recognizes data off the curve...might say, oh, great, here's somebody that can see me." – Garry Nolan [37:03]

• Optimism about Risk:

  "I just don't see...people are always like, oh, 20, 26, oh, 10 years from now, something...maybe, but if I can't control it, I'm not going to sit around worrying..." – Garry Nolan [42:13]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:10 - Start of technical discussion on anomalous metal fragments
• 05:41 - Description of fragment sizes and analysis techniques
• 09:50 - Discovery of shifted silicon isotope ratios
• 12:50 - Emphasis on presenting data, not conclusions
• 18:29 - Dr. Nolan on unusual layered bismuth-magnesium material
• 19:44 - Founding purpose of the Soul Foundation
• 24:39 - Avatar and intermediary theory for advanced civilizations
• 29:04 - Dr. Nolan recounts his "little guys" childhood experience
• 35:15 - UFO sighting as a paperboy
• 35:54 - Ariel School Zimbabwe mass sighting; idea of literally being “chosen”
• 39:47 - Distinction between skepticism and debunking in science
• 41:08 - On the lack of existential threat from non-human intelligences

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Tone and Style

The conversation is earnest, intellectual, and open. Dr. Nolan maintains scientific rigor while also engaging in philosophical speculation, eschewing wild claims. Mayim and Jonathan interject with playful, curious questions while grounding the discussion in empathy and rational inquiry.

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Closing Thoughts

This episode offers a rare peek into how a scientist investigates the paranormal without bias—balancing healthy skepticism, personal experience, and a search for communal understanding. Dr. Garry Nolan’s transparency about his findings, limits of scientific proof, and his own extraordinary encounters make for a compelling and thought-provoking discussion on the possibility of other intelligences, both in the universe and possibly, among us.

For more information, visit the Soul Foundation.

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Transcript

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[D]

And welcome to part two of our conversation with pathologist and Stanford School of Medicine professor Gary Nolan. In the first part of our conversation, we talked about Dr. Nolan's umbrella mission, combining a variety of backgrounds in biotechnology, immunology, cancer therapy, research, and how he got involved with a knock on the door from the CIA at his office one day in order to start analyzing things that the Government could not explain about unusual and unbelievable phenomenon. In part two of our conversation, we'll talk more about the Soul foundation and why he believes we can quantify the information we have about extrasensory beings. We're also going to talk about his personal experiences and something he saw as a child that changed him forever.

[B]

We're also going to tackle if aliens are monitoring our nuclear weapons and unexplained experiences that military pilots have had with their weapon systems being turned off.

[D]

In addition, Age of Disclosure has been all the buzz and we can't wait to ask Dr. Nolan about his experience being involved in the documentary and what he learned from being part of the documentary. Here is part two of our conversation with Dr. Gary Nolan. Break it down. I wonder if you can talk about, you know, some of the metal, some of the fragments that you've looked at and you've been able to analyze. You know, I think 99.999% pure silicon and magnesium isotope ratios that, that don't match typically what we see terrestrially. Talk about some of that, talk about, you know, what kind of analysis you can do and what it means when someone says to you this is from Roswell and this is not an element that exists on this planet. It has to be from another planet. What's your method of approach, what's your method of analysis and what can we say with any certainty?

[E]

Once we had taken the 90 people or so who had Havana syndrome out, it left these 10 people with, you know, some claimed, let's call them experiencers. And so that brought me in contact with, you know, other scientists, serious scientists who had already been involved in the study of at the time, UFOs and a couple of them claimed to have worked on programs. Now claimed I have two ways of looking at it and why I keep coming back to either the medical or the metals. If I could get a piece of something that was not made on this earth. We have access to all the elements as far as we know, except the, what's called, so called island of stability where there might be elements out beyond uranium, etc. Theoretical. But I can look at things and see if they're put together in a way that humans don't know how to do currently, right. Or at or it would be difficult to do. And so a couple of the materials that I was given, the one that I find most interesting was a piece of metal from the so called Ubatuba event. Another one was from the Council Bluffs event and then the third one was acclaimed Arts parts Roswell Piece, the layered material.

[D]

How big are these pieces that you're analyzing?

[E]

Well, the one from Council Bluffs, I mean, I recently was asked to reanalyze a piece and it was, you know, as big as your head.

[D]

Wow.

[E]

But the pieces that I analyzed were tiny. I mean, the analysis techniques use something called mass spectrometry, where you can, you can look at minuscule amounts of material. So the Ubatuba was has a kind of an interesting story. So claimed fisherman sees an object glowing near the seashore which seems to drop something or explode, picks up pieces of it, somehow it makes its way to a reporter in Brazil. Some analysis is done on it is claimed to be nearly pure magnesium. Some other pieces of it make its way down to Mexico also through the same reporter, but everybody says it's magnesium. So I get a piece of the thing and we used a kind of mass spectrometer called. It's a Kameka nanosims and it's a magnetic sector mass spectrometer. With that, you can extremely precisely determine the ratios of elements. And you can even elements that have the same weight because of neutron plus proton, you can distinguish them because the 0.000 something decimal point difference can actually be distinguished by this instrument. So because somebody had already told us that this was magnesium, we set the detectors to magnesium because it can only do like six or seven at a time. And then we had limited time on the instrument and so we used the others for iron. And what came out of that was interesting was that some of the Ubatuba pieces had absolutely perfect magnesium ratios and other had ratios that were way off. And I was like, okay, that's really weird. And these were all done in the same instrument at the same time right next to each other. So it's not like somebody came in between experiments and twiddled them. And of course, we did duplicates within the experiment and the same pieces showed the same difference. Okay, so I've talked about that openly, and Jacques Vallee has talked about it because he was the origin of the pieces that at least I got. Years later I, you know, I got access to an instrument called atomic probe tomography, which if you go look it up, it can basically take apart a very, very small piece of material, atom by atom, and determine its relative location within about five angstroms. Not enough to determine structure, but enough to give you the constituency of what's there. And so we did it. And it was like, this is really weird, it's all silicon. But I thought I just saw, you know, five, six years 10 years ago, magnesium. And then I looked back at the. At, you know, at the sensitivity of the instrument. And the sensitivity of the instrument was such that even if it were a minor trace element in the silicon, we would have picked it up. I then started talking to people who had previously analyzed the magnesium component and said, this is magnesium. And one of them actually contacted me and said, gary, you made a mistake. I said, no, I didn't. I got this from a claimed chain of evidence. You got yours from a claim. So maybe there were two materials. Maybe neither of us is wrong. Maybe there were two materials and they just made their separate ways. And I got one of them and they got the other. I mean, there's no doubt as to the scientific credibility of Powell, who did the first, and Swords, who did the first analysis. So in the data that we collected from the atomic probe tomography apt, I didn't see this. God knows why I didn't. The isotope ratios of the silicon were wrong. And I just, like, I've been sitting on that data for five years, and I'm just kicking myself because I wasn't going looking for it. Right. It's sort of like you see the numbers, you don't think about it. And it was only because I was working with some people in applied physics here at Stanford that they said, hey, did you check the silicon ratios? And I said, I looked at it and I said, oh, this is the wrong. They're way off.

[D]

What does that mean?

[E]

Well, first of all, 99.99% pure silicon is very difficult to make. I mean, we make it. At the time this piece was claimed to have come from, we were beginning to be able to make it, and it was being used for, you know, silicon nanofabrication. And. And actually, I don't know when solar cells were being developed, but it might have been around that time as well. But it was like, if we were. Why would you blow it up over a beach in Ubatuba? First of all, that kind of level. So it's not proof of anything. It's more. Here's the data. Do you believe that the data was collected correctly? Now, let's ask questions. Let's not jump to conclusions that it came from a ufo. Okay, so the ratios were so far off that, as it turned out, by chance, one of the guys who I was working with, a physicist of a level of understanding that, he said, well, the ratios were shifted. They were shifted up. There was less of 28, more of the next one up and more of the next one up, as if they'd all been shifted up. How do you do that? You could actually do it by bombarding the sample with neutrons that would basically force their way into the nucleus, add to it and change it from silicon 28 to silicon 29. He then calculated, using what's called cross section and all kinds of things, the amount of energy required to accomplish that, given the amount of material that we had access to. And it was like way beyond what any, what anybody was doing at the time or even doing today. And so that was interesting. He then went and looked at the magnesium ratios that we saw and saw that the exact same pattern was there too. Meaning. Meaning that even if there had been trace elements of magnesium, those would also have been pushed up the scale with approximately the same neutron. Now that's just a postulate. It's just here's the math that says that these numbers correlate. But then you have to ask, okay, the data is real because it was collected with the mass spectrometer multiple times. You know, a human could have done nothing with neutrons or whatever could have purified each of the individual elements, isotopes, which we do every day these days. I mean, but the scale of which is costly.

[D]

Yeah. And again, why is it blowing up over a beach?

[E]

And why would you mix it at exactly the ratio that conforms to what a neutron density exposure would allow? So, so some crazy Stanford scientist 30, 40, 50 years from then would, you know, be confused into, into this. So it comes back to my big push that it's. It's the data, not the conclusion.

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What about the. The bismuth magnesium, can you explain what happened with that?

[E]

We found some slight variations in the magnesium ratio that were in there, but not enough that weren't within statistical variation and maybe some other ways that it was made. But what was interesting was the layering and the manner in which the layering occurred.

[D]

You found it layered in the magnesium, Right? Was it oxide?

[E]

It's between the magnesium layers. And what was really clear was that at least even given some of the larger pieces, that the object had been exposed to either high heat or pressure. Sean Kirkpatrick claims it's from a missile casing. Well, I mean, Sean, nobody makes missile casings like this.

[D]

Yeah. And as you say, like, none of these are the smoking gun. Like, if you're looking for. If you're looking for a smoking gun, this is not it. But I do want to give you sort of a little bit of an opportunity to talk about the Soul foundation, because you have. You've co founded along with anthropologist Peter. Is it scayfish, scafish?

[E]

And actually David Grusch as well. So we should never leave David out.

[D]

I will never leave David out. And also, Avi Loeb works with you. He's a friend of the podcast, so we have other people in common.

[E]

He's in the Galileo project, we don't work directly together. I love him, and I love his defense of asking questions.

[D]

Yes, well, tell us about the Soul Foundation. Why did you start it? What was that like? What's it been like for you in terms of the blowback that you might get or some of the skepticism that people have?

[E]

The main reason, I think, for starting the Soul foundation was to create a perimeter within which reasonable scientists or reasonable laypeople with interest in this matter could come together without, let's say, you know, you see some of these UFO conferences that are just. They just look like circuses. I went to one once, and it was like, what's going on? This is not science. And, you know, I mean, I don't discredit what they're trying to do, which is to promote knowledge. It's just not the kind of conference that I'm accustomed to. And so we wanted a place that. Where if we were to hold, let's say, symposium or create, let's say, online communities where scientists could talk to other scientists about the ideas and just rationalize it. And for me, over the decade, it allowed me to realize the kinds of rhetoric that were being used against us and the twisted forms of logic that are traps that the likes of Mick west use. I'm sorry, Mick? Yeah, I do like Mick. But, you know, it's a. It's. It's either intentional or just a lack of understanding of how science operates and how there's just many forms of rhetoric that you can use to stun your opponent into silence that would take so long to dissect, that just are not allowed in normal scientific discourse. So I wanted, at least at the beginning, when I showed up on Twitter, I guess, to teach the community to, like, look, if you guys want to be taken seriously, here are the rules, and here's how you do it. And then that led eventually to the formation of sol, which wasn't meant to be anything other really, than an academic resource or an academically inspired 501C3 to allow people to come together to have rational discussion. And I've. You know, at the beginning, even before Seoul, I did have people come to me and say, you know, gary, what are you doing? And I was able to shame them into submission by saying, well, here's the. It's just the data. I'm not coming to a conclusion. And my standard retort, which worked the first time that this guy cornered me at a bar and I sound. You sound more like a priest than a PhD. I mean, I might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water in his face. Because I said, you're dogmatic. And if you ever did anything like that in a science setting, you would be excommunicated, as priests might do to you. Don't put words in my mouth. First of all, don't believe everything you read in the newspapers that people claim that I have said. I didn't say that. But, you know, we allow SETI to talk about civilizations on distant stars. But the problem I have with SETI is, you know, they're happy as long as it's 400 light years away, you know, because it can never be proven or disproven. You know, and so that signal that was supposedly around one of the local stars on the planet where they thought they were seeing signatures of life, I think it was hydrogen sulfide or something, has been published and has been dissected by others and suggested to be not right.

[D]

You're walking us right into a little game. We're gonna read a quote and you're gonna tell us if you actually said it or believe it or not. I think an advanced form of intelligence is using intermediaries that are put here as an intelligence test to see if you can see what's in front of you for what it really is, what's behind it.

[E]

So I said something like that, or even if that's a direct quote, but that was downstream of me saying that if they were here, this would be. So all of these things that are said miss the upstream context, where I say, let's play a thought game. And so if it's the case, why wouldn't you use an avatar? And I've said this directly. Why wouldn't you use an advanced form of a drone that you put down? Because, you know, who wants to walk into the middle? We're a bunch of angry monkeys. You know, our equivalent would be, would you walk into the middle of, you know, an Amazonian tribe that's still known to cannibalize, you know, use cannibalism, you know, just say, hi, here I am. Oh, yeah, here's dinner. You know, you know, it's like. It's like you would use intermediaries of some kind. I mean, I suspect that, you know, when humans get advanced enough, we're not going to send. Unless we somehow develop warp drive. You know, we're going to send some advanced kind of AI out there that might, you know, end up someplace. And if it needs. And it finds something that it thinks, oh, this is a civilization, it might not beam and say, hey, Here I am. Because maybe they'll just say, oh, you're gone. You know, maybe it would. If we were advanced enough with our own AI we would make something.

[D]

I mean, Robin Hansen says we're all just being held in a large pen in this. In this planet until we, you know, try and break out of this.

[E]

It's just a reasonable idea.

[B]

In the thought experiment of we would send AI And Robin Hansen's zoo hypothesis. Then there is this experiment happening on Earth that they are monitoring in some capacity, either hoping that we survive whatever technological evolution is happening in order to gain the sophistication to send artificial intelligence or technology out into the universe to. To contact, or they're hoping that we destroy ourselves and don't become a problem. Do you have a bet on either of those?

[E]

If there's something here, it clearly is. It would be much older civilizationally than we are. See, I always fall into this. Into this manner of speaking where it sounds like I'm talking about it is. Rather than it is just, you know, for the basis of argument, you know, let's just say that it is. Because you kind of have to start that way to. To test if everything is, you know, indeterministic. You can never walk down any path because you've basically set up so many prior insufficiencies that you, you know, so you kind of walk down paths mentally. If I were doing it and I had a view of time that was larger and I'd already been around for 20, 30 million years, I could be patient. I mean, people have a hard time dealing with this kind of time. Look at how far we've come in a hundred thousand years. Look at how far we come in a thousand years. So someone has been around for 20 million years. Let's call them the elders or whatever. They've seen species like us come and go. I like the diversity of biology. I'd like to see what happens when we don't interfere. Are there paths of evolution and kinds of intelligence that might arise that if we don't interfere, if something interfered too much, they're just making another version of themselves? But if they let us evolve a little more naturally, maybe we become an interesting partner 5 million years from now also.

[D]

And you know, something we. We weren't planning on touching on. But I think it's. I mean, you mentioned it briefly in a different context. You know, for people who look to expand their consciousness, for people who are getting in touch with things outside of this realm of consciousness, for people who are talking about, you know, kind of this quantum field of the experience. And, you know, everything that has happened will happen, is happening. You know, time is not linear, all these things. There's also this, this beautiful kind of intersection of that, of what happens when we sort of let things be. What happens if we don't have to figure everything out, but get to sort of exist and interact and sort of see what comes of it. And it is something that a lot of people find in a meditative state that they, you know, choose to focus on and. And, you know, kind of double click on. You've mentioned something twice that I also was not planning on asking about, but since you mentioned it twice, I do want to give you the opportunity to talk about your childhood and what you have experienced to whatever level that you like to.

[E]

Circa 1967 or so. I saw little guys in my bedroom.

[D]

What do you. What do you mean? Dr. Nolan?

[E]

I woke up.

[D]

You were awake?

[E]

I think I was awake. I saw little guys in my bedroom. At first I thought it was my brother who was four years younger than me. And I remember not being able to move. And so people would call that sleep paralysis. Okay, why I imagined these people or something looking in the window at me, I don't know. But it wasn't until like 20 or so years later when I was a grad student here at Stanford, I was in a used bookstore that I pulled. I was. I read science fiction almost exclusively. On the COVID of the book was what I had seen in my bedroom. And I just about had a meltdown. I remember just drop. I remember dropping the book in the middle of the. In the middle of the. Of the used bookstore on California Avenue. Somebody wants to go look up if such a bookstore existed to disprove. Prove me, you know, go for it. It was there. I can even tell you more or less where I think it was on California ave.

[D]

So for 20 years you just kept. You didn't say anything, you didn't tell.

[E]

Anyone, didn't tell anybody? I remember dropping it, but I didn't immediately turn and start studying it. But it did lead me to read the books by John Mack. And in there were the same pictures. And I was like, this is odd. Now this could be. This could all be explained by something called Jungian's collective unconscious, that we share a common mental framework that in dream states, et cetera, archetypes show up. So this could have just been an archetype of a Jungian collective unconscious. Not that we are some sort of hive mind, but that we have a genetics which did, you know, but it went on for a few weeks and my mother told me it's just bad dreams and then it stopped. End of story and never remember it again. Or, you know, no memories of abduction or anything like that. Just. Just a unique moment in my life.

[C]

Mayim Bialik's breakdown is supported by Superpower. You know, when I started this journey called Perimenopause, something that we've talked about.

[D]

A lot here on the podcast, I.

[C]

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[E]

You know, another was when I was a paper boy, I had a pretty large paper route that covered a very large area in Connecticut. And it was as I was walking through kind of the woods there that this object went right over my head with lights that was, you know, I mean, I didn't see anything but the lights and kind of the vague outline of it that just silently went over my head. It was at the level of the trees.

[D]

How big was this?

[E]

I estimate it to be 30, 40ft across. It was those kinds of moments that say, what was that? Again, not proof of anything, but, you know, enough of a. Enough of a memory that when I listen to other people tell even more detailed stories, I don't have to, I don't immediately think that they're crazy. I just like collecting the stories because the stories and the anecdotes when they all start to match up are like, okay, well why are they matching? What is this telling us?

[D]

Well, and you've Talked about, in 1994, there was this case in Zimbabwe and I've seen the documentary about it, you know, can you get 60 children to all tell the same simultaneous lie? No. Can you get them all to have the same report again simultaneously? It's not like they were all in the yard and had an opportunity to, like, let's come together with this story. And highly unusual for children of this age to be able to fabricate that. And when you think about. Yeah, did they have some collective experience which, you know, historically, things have happened like this, but it. It's something very, very specific that, you know, I. I think as you're kind of giving voice to, we can't ignore it. We can't necessarily say what it is, but we know what it's not. But there's. There's something here. I mean, some people would say that you were seated with these experiences because they knew that your brain would go on to do incredible things that allowed you to have access to this level of data and analysis. Do you feel you were chosen? I don't.

[E]

Yeah. I mean, that just feels so. Again, narcissistic. I would rather that it's say that if you have a brain state or. And again, a form of intelligence that recognizes data off the curve and whatever that. Whatever that initiating event is, has the ability to recognize you seeing might say, oh, great, here's somebody that can see me.

[D]

I don't know either. But I also, you know, Jonathan talks a lot about, you know, energy, work and being able to sense things. And certain people are intuitive. And I'm always from the. I'm always like, I don't know what that means. I really. It doesn't resonate with me, but I'm thinking like, the way that people who are healers, or the way that people who feel that they can see into problems you're having and extract them out, you know, I mean, even a good psychotherapist, right, those are people who are also tapping into something and seeing things in ways that you don't. It's kind of like it takes all types, you know, But I just. I can't help but wonder about that opening that you have.

[E]

I think one of the reasons why I'm a good scientist is being able to recognize data off the curve. Listening to students do a presentation of their work every, you know, couple of months, and they kind of flash by. They throw. They show the data, and then, you know, you see it and then. Wait a second, go back a few slides. What did that mean? Because if you're a scientist, you can't just use the data you like. And I'm sorry, I'm going to Use Nick west as an example. He's very good at saying this element of it proves it's a seagull, you know, and I'm, you know, I'm. But excludes all of the other counter seagull observations that were done at the time. And that kind of cherry picking just isn't allowed in real science. I mean, CBS News called me to try to get me to do an interview to do a debate with him. This was just a few weeks ago. And I said without a doubt, never. Because I never. Because he does this all the time. And I don't have the time to dissect every one of the arguments. And science is not a popularity contest. I'm not going to sit in front of, of an audience, which is basically some form of a Jerry Springer show, to argue with somebody who doesn't even understand the difference between data, evidence and proof. He dares to call himself a skeptic? No. His website is Metabunk. He's a debunker. He comes to the story ahead of time. And I don't want to pick on him, but he's a type of person that serious people just need to ignore because like, it's like I, I'm a scientist. I was born a skeptic or I was trained to be a skeptic. I'm skeptic of my own ideas.

[D]

I want to ask you one more question before we let you go. And I really, I would love to have coffee with you because I have many other things I want to ask you. Do you think that there, given everything you know, everything you're gathering, everything you're seeing, everything you participated in in the Age of Disclosure documentary, do you think we are at risk either physically or existentially? Is there some imminent threat potentially either from adversarial forces within this solar system or from outside the solar system?

[E]

For them to be a threat, they'd have to need something that we have.

[D]

We have you. I'm offering you up. Here's, here's Gary.

[E]

Thanks so much. But, well, if they land and open the door, I'm on board. You know, I was 65 two days ago, so happy birthday. I'm like, I would go on that adventure, you know, but no, I really don't. And maybe this is just because I'm an optimist, but, but, but I'm also practical. It's like there's, there's really. Apart from the ecosphere, which we're doing.

[D]

Our best to destroy.

[E]

Yeah. There's nothing here that they can't get in a thousand other places. Wow. You know, there's no resource, there's no whatever. We might want resources in the African savanna, but there are certain animals that live there that can live nowhere else. And so maybe we just let them live for as long as they can until the climate might change so drastically. But, you know, but species come and species go because climates do change over the course of geologic history. You know, I often say to people it's like, look, in geologic terms, you neither mattered nor will you matter across the course of history. It's the collective force. So I, I just, I just don't know. I just don't see. I mean, people are always like, oh, 20, 26, oh, 10 years from now, something or this or that's going to happen maybe, but if I can't control it, I'm not going to sit around worrying about it. I can prepare contingencies, let's say. But I, I'm not living, I'm not interested in living in a post apocalyptic world where I can't order something from Amazon and get it the next day. All it would take any advanced society to do if they wanted to wipe us out, is do what happened to the dinosaurs, find a big rock, point it our way and that's the end of life on Earth and start again.

[D]

And that's the optimistic take from Dr.

[E]

Gary Nolan, is that they haven't done it yet. And so I don't think that we're in any short term danger of anybody doing it again anytime soon.

[D]

I will rest easy and think of that. Dr. Nolan, thank you so much. Really appreciate your candor and yeah, really appreciate your contributions to the larger field and also the specificity with which you're comfortable talking about this. We really appreciate it.

[E]

Thanks so much. It was an enjoyable discussion.

[D]

The fact that he mentioned, he mentioned it too, twice, that he had a personal experience. I couldn't let it go. His experiences, first of all, like, fascinating and wow. But the thing that struck me most was when he said that when he hears other people tell about their experiences that like something in him knows something. And it's true. It could be that there's a, you know, collective archetype that we create and this is the thing. And, and Jeffrey Kripal, who also works associated with Soul foundation and Jeffrey Kripal talks about this as well. There are images that we see and people used to think a demon was sitting on your chest and that's why you couldn't move at night. You know, there's all sorts of kind of mythology historically, but goes back thousands and thousands of years. And a lot of these things have been clocked for thousands of years.

[B]

He also said maybe in 5 million years, we'd evolve to be very good partners for this advanced civilization. And I was like, we're so basic now. If I take the Robin Hansen idea, sort of that we have, We've posited here the idea that aliens are some form of advanced civilization, likely millions of years ahead of us, and they've replaced a lot of their biology with synthetic material. I think it goes back to the conversation with Greg Braden that right now, life on earth is at this transition point where we're gaining an enormous amount of intelligence, but we're starting to augment ourselves and losing this version of what it means to be human. And I think this version is very, very special. And as we evolve, there are trade offs in that evolution, and we will lose aspects of what it fundamentally is to be alive in human form in this. In this way. And so I think whatever they have lost along the way, they're wondering if we can continue our journey and progress and not have the pitfalls that they may have encountered.

[D]

You know what they want? Reality tv.

[B]

No, they don't. Everyone is, like, very civilized. There's no outrage.

[D]

This is going to be the new way that I say no to my children when they want things like they want, like a new pair of blundstones or whatever they want. It doesn't matter.

[C]

None of it's gonna matter.

[D]

Would the aliens want your boots? No. So you don't need them either?

[B]

Would the aliens want your boots? I wonder how that's gonna go over. We'll report back.

[D]

What are the. What are the lullaboos? Lullaboos?

[B]

What did you call.

[D]

Maybe they want.

[E]

I love a lullaboo.

[D]

Maybe they want that. They want those surprise lullaboos. But what is it?

[B]

I'm going to admit, I don't even know what that is. I don't. I don't even know what a lou boo is. I know the word. I don't know what it is.

[D]

It looks like a munchie chi wearing a rabbit suit with fangs. It's like a very big thing.

[C]

I do recommend.

[D]

If you want to learn all the things that you should know about Dr. Nolan's work, please visit the Soul Foundation. Soul spelled like the Spanish sun. S O L thesoulfoundation.org really, really great episode, Jonathan. Very, very glad that we got to speak to Dr. Nolan.

[B]

If you want more about our theories about the future of humanity. We're gonna give you some over on Substack to the Breaker community, which is just a phenomenal place to come and inter get more on all of our episodes and exclusive content that we don't release anywhere else. So come check it out. My and Bialik's breakdown on substack.

[D]

We'll see you over there.

[C]

And from our breakdown to the one.

[D]

We hope you never have, we'll see you next time.

[C]

Pew, pew, pew.

[A]

It's Maya Bialik's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two non fiction. And now she's going to break down to break down she's going to break it down.