#244 Victor Vescovo – Solo Dive to the Titanic, Cloning Humans & Reviving Extinct Animals

Summary

Shawn Ryan Show – Episode #244

Guest: Victor Vescovo
Date: October 13, 2025
Main Theme:
A deep dive into the life and mind of Victor Vescovo—investor, explorer, submarine pilot, and world record-holder. The episode explores his daring solo dive to the Titanic, technologies for ocean and space exploration, ethical questions around de-extinction and human cloning, personal sacrifices, and America's role in scientific progress and competition.

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Episode Overview

Shawn Ryan welcomes Victor Vescovo, a singular explorer known for summiting the highest peaks on seven continents, skiing to both poles, piloting the only submersible to reach the deepest points in all five oceans—including solo dives to the Titanic—and flying into space. The conversation moves from Vescovo's background and values to the practicalities and perils of exploration, the science and ethics of reviving extinct species, counterinsurgency warfare, venture capital in frontier technologies, and introspection on the meaning of exploration and life. Throughout, the episode underscores the American spirit of ambition, innovation, and resilience.

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1. Introduction & Vescovo’s Background (01:07–09:25)

• Impressive résumé:

  • Founder of Caledon Capital, military intelligence veteran, record-holding explorer, and Blue Origin astronaut.
  • Noted for the "extreme trifecta" of climbing Everest, going to the bottom of the ocean, and going to space.

• Key philosophies:

  • Preparation and risk mitigation are central, whether in finance or exploration.

• Notable moment:

  • Vescovo donates a rare challenge coin carried to the bottom of the ocean to Shawn (06:04).
  • “This is something that I only minted about 50 challenge coins… this particular one was down with me when I took down the first woman to the bottom of the ocean, Dr. Kathy Sullivan…” – Victor Vescovo, (05:26)

• Early influences and values:

  • Family history of hard work and ambition (Italian immigrants in Tennessee).
  • Quiet, nerdy childhood in Texas with early interests in adventure, military history, and science.

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2. Exploration Drive & Personality (09:25–14:05)

• Nature vs. nurture:

  • Sees exploration as a genetic impulse, “a compulsion” (10:32).
  • “If I do not get out and explore new things, I get very anxious.” – Victor Vescovo, (10:32)

• Balance in society:

  • Society needs both explorers and settlers.

• Investments as exploration:

  • Transitioned from geography to venture capital, exploring the frontier in tech, biosciences, asteroid mining.

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3. De-extinction, Cloning, & Biotechnology Ethics (13:59–24:47)

• On de-extinction:

  • Involvement with Colossal Biosciences, aiming to bring back species like the woolly mammoth and Tasmanian tiger.
  • Main value is the tools for large-scale DNA editing—applications far beyond resurrecting extinct animals.
  • “If something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck... I think it’s a duck.” – Victor Vescovo, (16:24)

• Bioethics:

  • Acknowledges concerns, insists it’s better for U.S. bioethics norms to lead: “If we don’t do it here... other countries will do it first.” (21:57)
  • Cloning humans is possible—whether it's been done is an open question (23:16).

• Notable moment:

  • Discusses attempt to develop artificial wombs for mammals, and future implications for human infertility and reproduction (24:02).

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4. Education, Military & Intelligence Career (24:50–38:08)

• Academic journey:

  • Degrees from Stanford, MIT (studied war simulation), Harvard Business School.
  • Direct commission into Naval Intelligence due to unique skillset (27:13).

• Firsthand experience in war and counterterrorism:

  • Involved in Kosovo, post-9/11 operations in the Philippines, hostage debriefings.

• Insight:

  • “War is a process like any other… it can be reduced…to mathematics.” (30:12)
  • Air combat determined more by pilot quality than hardware.

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5. Counterinsurgency & Warfare Analysis (38:08–40:36)

• Winning a counterinsurgency requires:

  1. Isolating the battlefield
  2. Isolating the population
  3. Seek & destroy missions
  4. Enduring institutions

• Memorable quote:

  • “Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.” – Victor Vescovo, (32:38)
  • “Regeneration is the dirty secret of counterinsurgencies.” (33:19)

• Critique of U.S. wars:

  • America’s failures in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq rooted in political unwillingness to apply historical lessons.

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6. Venture Capital & Tech Investments (40:36–47:23)

• Early career in industrial private equity:

  • Brought manufacturing back to U.S., albeit with difficulty.

• Futuristic projects:

  • Astroforge for asteroid mining—profit is possible but the technology is what matters.
  • Automation in shipbuilding to counter China’s vast capacity.
  • Development of life sciences companies. Discussed potential treatment for incurable neural diseases using artificial viruses (42:43).
  • Stratospheric airships for communications and surveillance (45:27).

• The Explorers Club:

  • Gathering of global explorers; Vescovo offers Shawn an invitation (47:14).

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7. Deep Sea Exploration & Advocacy (48:19–60:52)

• Life with his custom submersible:

  • Privileged to share the deep sea experience with scientists who’d never been to the environments they’d studied.
  • Sold his ship to Gabe Newell (Valve/Steam founder) who continues research.

• Strong stance against deep sea mining:

  • Critiques The Metals Company’s plans to mine for polymetallic nodules.
  • Deep sea mining’s metals are mostly copper, manganese (common); only cobalt and nickel are controversial and increasingly unnecessary due to battery tech innovation.
  • “Never get into a vehicle where their fear of failure is greater than their fear of dying.” – Victor Vescovo, (82:37)

• Strategic recommendations:

  • Key for U.S. is to partner with Australia and others, invest in domestic processing. The environmental and financial costs are underappreciated compared to alternatives (59:52).

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8. U.S.–China Strategic Competition (63:15–73:13)

• China’s advantages and constraints:

  • Large population, state control, low concern for environmental regulation; but also in long-term decline due to demographic imbalance from the one-child policy.
  • China’s best hope for Taiwan is cognitive/information warfare, not military action.
  • Predicts internal strife in China due to male-female imbalance and shrinking population.

• Personal reflection:

  • Acknowledges choices in prioritizing career & exploration over family.
  • Willing embrace of being “expendable”—“I tend to push the envelope... It’s nice to know one’s role in life.” – Victor Vescovo, (73:13)

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9. Titanic Dives & Undersea Records (74:37–86:10)

• First solo dive to Titanic:

  • “Probably the most dangerous dive I ever did…”—because of risk of entanglement, currents (74:39)
  • Limited visibility; “You get a better view... on the recent special... I saw that for the first time and went ‘wow.’” – Victor Vescovo, (77:09)

• Titan sub tragedy:

  • Warned colleagues not to board “inherently dangerous” sub (81:15).
  • “It was structurally deficient. It was operated in an unsafe manner... Stockton Rush... couldn’t stop.” (82:28)

• Discovering historic shipwrecks:

  • Found USS Johnston, USS Samuel B. Roberts—the deepest wrecks ever found.
  • Wrecks pristine due to low oxygen; could reconstruct battle damage.

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10. Five Oceans, Abyssal Discoveries & Ocean Mapping (86:10–102:19)

• Five Deeps Expedition:

  • Conceived after failures by others; self-funded, built a diverse, crack team.
  • “How hard could it be?”—the five most dangerous words in English. (88:23)
  • Each deep dive uncovered new life forms.

• Biology & mystery:

  • Organisms live under 8 tons per square inch; some are genetically similar across vast distances, others unique.
  • Chemosynthetic colonies draw energy from chemicals, not sunlight.
  • Bioluminescent life forms communicate via light at great depths.

• New ocean mapping vessel:

  • Plans for an AI/autonomous ship to map the unseen 75% of the ocean.
  • Open-source mapping data to benefit science globally.

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11. Extreme Environments & The "Explorer's High" (102:19–111:03)

• Underwater lakes and brine pools:

  • “The first time I tried to go through the barrier, I did it so slowly the submarine bounced off of it...” (105:25)
  • Explored with a spirit of curiosity and calculated risk.

• Taking scientists to see what they’ve only studied:

  • Brought a volcanologist to see her first underwater volcano.
  • Took a Hawaiian marine biologist from the base to the summit of Mauna Kea.

• Open-minded skepticism:

  • Investigated claims about Atlantis and underwater anomalies at request of U.S. Navy brass.

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12. The Explorers' Grand Slam & High-Altitude Adventures (113:08–120:43)

• Definition:

  • Summit all seven highest continental peaks, ski to North & South poles.

• Most dangerous:

  • “High altitude mountaineering is the most dangerous, no question.” (113:18)
  • Everest: stories of surviving storms, physical & mental endurance, encountering the dead.
  • Hardest summit: Carstensz Pyramid in Papua New Guinea—remote, tribal danger as real as the climb.

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13. Spaceflight & “The Overview Effect” (122:14–128:00)

• Spaceflight via Blue Origin:
  • “It’s like going to a Metallica rock concert.” (122:14)
  • The “overview effect”—a transformative sense of unity and beauty seeing Earth from above.
  • “I don’t think anyone goes into space and comes back worse.” (124:04)
  • Space exploration is as essential to human advancement as ocean exploration.

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14. Reflections on Life, Faith, and Meaning (128:00–135:13)

• Philosophy on faith:

  • Zen Buddhist with respect for all faith traditions; finds awe and meaning in lived experience, not concerned with what comes after life.
  • “If I can’t know something, I don’t worry about it.” (128:05)

• Spirituality of exploration:

  • “The best Gothic cathedral I’ve ever seen in my life are the Himalayas.” (130:05)
  • Sees everything as interconnected.

• Flying & military lessons:

  • Flying as a metaphor for preparation and discipline.
  • The Navy: lessons on managing teams, motivating people, working with constraints.

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15. Final Words: The Continuing Journey (132:23–135:59)

• New frontiers:

  • Focused on building the most advanced ocean-mapping ship.
  • Frustrated by permitting barriers and cost of manufacturing in the U.S.
  • The American spirit: resilience, optimism, cherishing failure as progress.

• Memorable closing quote:

  • “Americans, we always get stuff done… Failure is almost a badge of honor in our country. It meant you tried…” – Victor Vescovo (135:13)

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• On risk and preparation:
  “Never get into a vehicle where their fear of failure is greater than their fear of dying.” – Victor Vescovo, (82:37)

• On genetics and exploration:
  “Some people love their homes… other people have this compulsion to explore new places, new things. And I think it's genetic.” (10:32)

• On the spirit of Atlantis (and truth):
  “History is a pack of lies mutually agreed upon.” – Victor Vescovo, (111:00)

• On national character:
  “Failure is almost a badge of honor in our country. It meant you tried, and that is so rare in so many places in the world.” (135:13)

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Key Timestamps for Segments

• Introduction & Life Overview: 01:07–09:25
• Exploration Drive & Personality: 09:25–14:05
• De-extinction & Biotech Ethics: 13:59–24:47
• Military & Intelligence Career: 24:50–38:08
• Counterinsurgency & Warfare: 38:08–40:36
• Venture Capital & Tech: 40:36–47:23
• Deep Sea Mining Debate: 48:19–60:52
• US–China Strategic Dynamics: 63:15–73:13
• Diving the Titanic: 74:37–86:10
• Five Deeps & Species Discovery: 86:10–102:19
• Extremes & Explorer’s High: 102:19–111:03
• Grand Slam & Mountaineering: 113:08–120:43
• Spaceflight & Meaning: 122:14–128:00
• Life Reflections: 128:00–135:13

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Conclusion

Victor Vescovo emerges as both a literal and figurative deep diver—into the oceans, into the frontiers of science, and into the human experience. The episode is a powerful meditation on risk, innovation, meaning, and the indomitable possibilities inherent in the human (and American) spirit. Shawn Ryan’s probing yet respectful interview elicits both technical detail and genuine personal reflection, making this episode a must-listen—and now, a must-read summary—for anyone fascinated with exploration, technology, or human potential.

Transcript

[Sean Ryan]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com Una Silla de Masajes puede pares er extravagante Ocho configuraciones differentes intensidada justable Ven bastante practicas el nuevo Volkswagen taeguandos mil veinticinco confuciones premium como los hacientos de lanternos con masaje disponivles solo parese extravagante. Victor Viscovo, welcome to the show.

[Victor Viscovo]

Thank you very much for having me, man.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm looking forward to this. You have done so much in life, especially with exploring the earth and even outside of the earth. It's going to be a fascinating interview. So I really appreciate you coming.

[Victor Viscovo]

Thank you for the invitation. It's quite a privilege.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you. But. All right, we're going to get right into it, so I'm going to do a little bit of a life story on you. And then towards the end, I just want to talk about all the amazing adventures that you've been on. But we always start off with with an introduction here. So here we go.

[Victor Viscovo]

Okay.

[Sean Ryan]

Victor Viscovo, private investor with over 30 years in complex business deals. Co founder of Insight Equity, where you raised over 1.5 billion. Now running Caledon Capital, focused on defense startups, high tech hardware and Life Sciences. Retired US Navy Reserve commander with 20 years of service as an intelligence officer. An extreme explorer who completed the explorer's grand slam by submitting by summiting the highest peaks on all seven continents, including Everest and skiing to both poles. Plus, you're the first person to dive to the deepest points in all five oceans. You hold the Guinness Book world records the most dives to Challenger Deep 15 times. Discovering the deepest shipwrecks and achieving the extreme trifecta by going to Everest, the ocean's bottom and to space on blue origin. That's insane. Member of the Ocean Elders, where you're an outspoken advocate against deep sea mining. You have, you have a ship named after you, a naval ship, the USNS Victor Viscovo Tagos 26, a Navy Ocean surveillance ship. You push the boundaries by mitigating risk with preparation in life and finance and on your Adventures and, you know, quite the introduction there. I've probably been missing some stuff, but. Wow. But right off the bat, sometimes we do an EDC pocket dump in here, but I think this is going to be a long one. So we're not. But Jeremy had told me about your timepiece.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

And so me and my viewers are big, big fans of. We're just always interested in what people are wearing. So you have a one of a kind.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. It's a rather unique timepiece. I'm a brand ambassador for Omega, and before even that, I really admired their timepieces. And I needed a precision waterproof timepiece to wear on all my dives to the five oceans. It had to be a chronometer, so I picked up a titanium seamaster, and this timepiece has now been with me on every dive I've ever made. It's been to 17 deep ocean trenches. It made all 15 dives to Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the ocean. I also took it into space with me, and so it's been my trusted companion on a lot of my different adventures.

[Sean Ryan]

Man, that has been through a lot.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, it has indeed.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Victor Viscovo]

A few emergencies deep in the water and not many people know it, but during the Apollo 13 disaster, they relied on their Omegas to do the timed burn on their way back to Earth. That allowed them to do a proper re entry. So it's actually a piece of safety equipment for a submersible that you need an analog time instrument in case everything else fails, which is what happened on Apollo 13. And so when you're in a submersible, if there's a big emergency and all your electronics go down, you can keep precise time. In fact, one key feature of that, if you're in a submersible and you're stranded on the bottom every 15 or 30 minutes exactly, you would actually wrap on the outside of the submersible with something metal because nature would never do that. A precise signal at an exact time frame with Morse code, SOS or something like that. So the timepiece is a critical survival piece of equipment, even deep in the ocean.

[Sean Ryan]

Man, that is cool. You know, I look out of this thing, too. I love it.

[Victor Viscovo]

I love it. And I love the fact that the submersible that I dove so much in was also made of titanium. So there was a nice symmetry there.

[Sean Ryan]

Very cool, Very cool. Thank you for sharing that.

[Victor Viscovo]

Of course. And I have a gift for you. May I?

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, yes. I love gifts.

[Victor Viscovo]

So this is something that I only minted about 50 challenge coins, a very military Thing. And this was part of the series that I took down to the very bottom of the ocean. And this particular one was down with me when I took down the first woman to the bottom of the ocean, Dr. Kathy Sullivan, who is the first person, male or female, to go to the bottom of the ocean and to go into space. Wow. And it's a certificate of authenticity. But that's a. Oh, man, thank you. Bottom of the ocean. And those are stars for all the different trenches that we dove on that particular expedition.

[Sean Ryan]

Very cool. Thank you. Of course, man, that's awesome. That's going to go great here in the studio. So thank you.

[Victor Viscovo]

Of course.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, we got a couple of things to knock out too. I. I have a small gift for you as well.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, what is this?

[Sean Ryan]

This is Vigilance Elite Gummy Bears. Made in the USA, legal in all 50 states. There's no funny business.

[Victor Viscovo]

Good, because I gotta fly later.

[Sean Ryan]

And then on top of that, I have a Patreon account. It's a subscription network and we've turned it into quite the community. They've been here with me since the beginning and they're the reason that I get to do this and talk to very interesting folks like yourself. And so one of the things I offer them is to ask each and every guest a question. So this is from Michael King. You have accomplished so many daring and life threatening accomplishments. Has your personal family life suffered as a consequence of your pursuit of so many expeditions?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yes, because there are only so many hours in the day and family are of course, extremely important. And I think I've made a conscious decision where I prioritize for most of my life, my career, my military service and exploring. And to be quite frank, something has to give. And so, yes, that certainly has been a drawback.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll bet, I'll bet. How often are you, I mean, how often are you active on these expeditions?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, it tends to come and go in waves. When I was diving intensively between 2018 and 2022, I would be off four weeks, even months at a time, come back to recharge in my home in Texas and then go back out on expedition. So it was a very intense four years, like being on deployment, you know, in the teams or something like that. But now I'm more focused on developing technology potentially to go back into the ocean, hopefully in two, three or four years and restart the cycle.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow, man. Very interesting life.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yes, it's been amazing. I feel incredibly privileged to live in a country and in a society that allows for people to come from Modest upbringing to achieve extraordinary things. If you have the imagination and you're willing to work very, very hard.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, that's. I mean, one. That's one reason why you're here. I just think that in this country we have. Victimization has become a thing. And so one of the things I like to do on the show is especially like a story like yours, modest upbringing and going through your life trajectory to show that the American dream is still very much alive and well. And if you want and you're going to put the work in and you have the drive and the ambition, anything's possible.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. My ancestors came here at the turn of the century from Italy, and they settled here in Tennessee. They settled outside of Memphis and they had an ice cream factory, they had farms, they worked hard, they brought their other family members across, and they were reasonably successful. And I just stood on the shoulders of my ancestors who worked hard, played by the rules, and allowed me to achieve the things that I did.

[Sean Ryan]

Where did you grow up?

[Victor Viscovo]

I grew up in Dallas, Texas. Born and raised Texan, even though I don't have the accent. When I was three years old, my family lived in Connecticut, so I learned how to talk there. But I'm a true blood Texan.

[Sean Ryan]

What were you into as a kid?

[Victor Viscovo]

I was a quiet kid. I loved to read. In fact, the first book I ever checked out of a library was a military history book. God help me. So I've always had a fascination with history and military affairs. But I also. I think the most dangerous thing my parents ever did was they gave me a bicycle when I was 7 and they didn't see me for a while. I just loved going way, way out to explore my world and come back at night to their horror. So, yeah, I was quiet. I had a very small circle of dedicated friends. Played Dungeons and Dragons in high school. Big nerd. Focused a lot on math and science. The typical story. But it set me up for a lot of success later in life.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, were you. Would you consider yourself an explorer as a child? Where did the fascination come in?

[Victor Viscovo]

It's genetic. I think that it's become more commonly known that so many things follow on a normal histogram distribution. Some people love their homes and very rarely leave. They do their thing and other people have this compulsion to explore new places, new things. And I think it's genetic based. You know, society needs that 2 or 3% of the people that really want to go see what's on the other side of that hill, even if it kills them, because they just can't help it. But they also need the other 2 or 3% that maintain the home and the hearth. You need that balance in society. And I definitely think that genetically and by the very permissive parents that I had who were great, that I fostered that desire and love of exploration. I couldn't not explore. It's like a compulsion. If I do not get out and explore new things, I get very anxious.

[Sean Ryan]

So your lineage, everybody was an explorer if it's genetic, right?

[Victor Viscovo]

That's right. We come from a long line of people that push the boundaries.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's hear about it.

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, no, I mean just think about it evolutionarily. If you had a species that never took any risks whatsoever, they would be out competed by those other species or other parts of your own species that would out compete you for food and for resources. Just like the beginning of The Wonderful Movie 2001 A Space Odyssey where that first brilliant scene with the apes, it was the tribe that learned how to use the first tool that actually started gaining ascendance. So you need. If everyone was incredibly exploration focused and always seeking new things, it'd be chaotic. You can't have everyone like that and it is dangerous and some of us don't come back. But yeah, you need that element in society to keep pushing you forward. And that's why I do venture capital. Now it's an exploration in a different way. We're deploying capital our own know how to try and push the boundaries even further. You've had a guest on this show, Matt Gieleck of Astroforge. I've invested in his company. He and I are good friends. I've invested in Colossal Biosciences which is trying to de extinct dinosaurs and other animals. It's part of overall exploration. Not just physical exploration like I've done, but also financial, economic and societal.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you. Couple of questions that just came out of that one. De extinction of dinosaurs. But before we get there, I mean, what do you notice? What are the similarities? I mean you are an explorer that takes it to the. I mean to beyond human capabilities almost.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, it's the fun place to be.

[Sean Ryan]

And so I mean that takes a lot of courage. But I mean there's a few other people that you know that try to do this. I mean do you find any commonalities?

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh absolutely. There's a group in New York called the Explorers Club that was established around the turn of the century and, and that's where all these island of misfit toys people collaborate and get together and talk about what they're working on, whether it's to explore the rainforests or it's to go to the bottom of caves, or it's to trek across Antarctica. And we get together and share our experiences and enjoy each other's company. Because there aren't many people like us, it seems.

[Sean Ryan]

De extinction of dinosaurs. We have to hit this right now. What do you think about that? How's it going to end up?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, many people focus, of course, on what we call the kind of marquee element of that which is de extincting the woolly mammoth. We're not going to de extinct dinosaurs. The DNA is too fractured, it's too old. The real value in a company like Colossal Biosciences are the tools that they're developing in order to manipulate things at the genetic level. That company is developing tools that will allow us to do large edits on DNA of mammalian species, but also others. And it's those tools that are extremely valuable. It will allow us to conserve animals that are critically endangered. It's a heck of a lot easier to preserve an existing species than to bring one back that's already extinct. So animals where there are only a handful left, we can preserve their DNA and potentially in the future, synthetically create healthy populations, which would make extinction, hopefully a thing of the past when we fully develop the tools. So Colossal really is a technology company. It's just that all the attention is placed on the dire wolves or the dodo bird or the physical manifestations of these incredible tools they're developing. But as a venture capitalist, I'm most interested in the tools. Astroforge is the same way where they're trying to mine asteroids in space. But the real value of Astroforge, yes, they'll potentially get money back from bringing platinum group metals back to Earth. But if you can go to an asteroid, land on it and scrape it for some metals, project that 20 or 30 or 40 years in the future, the technology tools you're developing to do that have immense applications for space exploration, space colonization, any number of other things.

[Sean Ryan]

It's the tools that are valuable with the woolly mammoth. I mean, so would that be when that comes back? And I don't. I have no idea how long, how far.

[Victor Viscovo]

2028, I think, is the current projected 2028.

[Sean Ryan]

So is this a. Is this a legitimate woolly mammoth or is it edited?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, that's a very good debate. There are some in the scientific community that say, no, you're just making what's called a chimera. You're taking an existing species and injecting some genetics that make it look like a woolly mammoth. It's not a real woolly mammoth or a real dire wolf because it doesn't have the identical or very close to identical DNA of the original. And I think that one could argue that they have a point.

[Sean Ryan]

But.

[Victor Viscovo]

But it goes back to the old saw, right? If something looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, eats like a duck. I think it's a duck. And what is important is that we are able to create species that can fill a niche. Like the Tasmanian tiger that was eliminated by mankind. It was exterminated and it unbalanced the ecosystem in Tasmania. If we can bring back an animal that functions like the Tasmanian tiger did in the ecosystem, I think that's a big win. Even if at a purely scientific level, it doesn't have exactly the same DNA as the one that was exterminated. There is value into what they're doing, I think.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, so with the dire wolf, I mean, where is that wolf now?

[Victor Viscovo]

What are they dealing with it? It's in the United States.

[Sean Ryan]

It's in the United States.

[Victor Viscovo]

Carefully guarded preserve in the United States. And I think there's good reason, is that they want to keep the animals isolated so they can study them. No one's ever brought back an animal like this before. And I think there's a lot of curiosity about how will they act purely out of their own genetics.

[Sean Ryan]

See, that's what I was. That's where I was going is what is, what is the species instinct? Has it been.

[Victor Viscovo]

We don't know. There's so much in terms of animal husbandry of those animals that we simply don't know. Will they know how to be a dire wolf? How will they hunt? Will they hunt like a gray wolf or will they hunt differently than a gray wolf? Where they're descended from? We don't know. And that's why, in many respects, it's a great science experiment. And there's a little joke that Colossal really isn't in the business of producing direwolves. It's in the produce, the production of PhDs. Because there's so many new things happening that they're doing that have never been done before.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, I mean, is there any. I mean, is there any info on, you know, how it's going? I mean, do we know. I guess what I'm trying to ask is do we know how the dire wolf's behavior was before we. Do we have any idea of what their behavior was? You know, as an extinct animal. And will we be able to observe, you know, some of those?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, I'm speaking way out of my expertise level. I'm not an animal expert or a. Any kind of expert on dire wolves. Obviously we've never seen one in the wild. They died 10,000 plus years ago. All we have is the fossil record from the Brea Tar Pits and other places like that. But we know what they look like, we know probably what they hunted based on what was inside of them. And yeah, I'm not sure exactly what we're going to be able to learn, but I guarantee you it'll be new. And I do know that they want to build a few more to have a functioning pack. And the only other thing I've heard is that they're getting quite big. Yeah. But more than a few people have said so Victor, you're an investor in Colossal. Are you going to get to have a direwolf? And I said yeah, yeah, right. I want 120 pound killing machine in my backyard. I don't think so, man.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, I can't wait to hear about that woolly mammoth. That's going to be.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, hopefully that works well. But. And it could be delayed, you never know. This is genetics. It's not easy. And they take a year to gestate. It's an elephant, but that would be a big event. I'm looking forward to the dodo bird.

[Sean Ryan]

When's that?

[Victor Viscovo]

That hopefully. Well, I don't know exactly when, I can't say. But it's maybe on similar timeline for the woolly mammoth, I hope.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Victor Viscovo]

But beautiful animal, obviously extincted by mankind unnaturally and it's just a cute bird.

[Sean Ryan]

Are there any, are there any animals that have gone extinct in the, in recent history that we. We have. That we have dead on. We have their behavior on that they'll be able to bring back?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, the Tasmanian tiger was close. I think it went extinct in the 1920s. So we actually had really good DNA from them because they had preserved their remains and it was in a zoo in Tasmania. So we did see how they acted. And there may even still be people alive that saw them in the wild. So we're not sure. That's probably the closest.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow, that'll be interesting. Is that on the agenda?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. We're working closely with the Australian government because they want it brought back and reintroduced because it unbalanced the ecosystem in Tasmania.

[Sean Ryan]

How did it unbalance it?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, they put a bounty out on them because they thought that they were a Pest. So, yeah, they shot them all to death. And then when you lose the apex predator in an ecosystem, you end up getting overpopulation of what they were predating on what they were eating. And that can lead to overgrazing. When you overgraze, you're reducing the amount of tension in the soil caused by the root system of the shrubs that they're eating, which causes rivers to literally change course. There's a Wonderful documentary on YouTube that shows what happened when they reintroduced gray wolves into Yellowstone. I suggest anybody watching it, because it shows how transformational just adding a few apex predators were to that ecosystem. It literally changed the course of rivers as they brought down the population of the elk and caribou that they were eating. And there was not as much overgrazing. So more foliage came back, more species came back. You know, beavers came back, they started damming the rivers, and things started changing that made a more healthy environment.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. No kidding.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

That's incredible.

[Victor Viscovo]

And that's what we're hoping can happen with the woolly mammoth, with the Tasmanian tiger, with a lot of these other de. Extincted species.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think they'll just be reintroduced into the wild carefully?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, we'll have to be extremely careful about that. But there are so many bioethicists and brilliant people on the board of Colossal that are doing this. And a lot of people said, you know, we shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't be playing with genetics at that level, de extincting species. If we don't do it here in the United States, actually in my hometown of Dallas, other countries will do it first. It's kind of like, in some respects, some of the greatest advances in human history. They can be dangerous, and they can be incredibly beneficial. I trust our culture and I trust our people to do it.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, yeah, that's. I mean, that's an interesting argument. I mean, we shouldn't be playing with genetics, but we probably shouldn't be, you know, extincting animals either.

[Victor Viscovo]

It's a tool that humankind needs in its toolbox. If we extinct a species deliberately or by accident, that's a good tool to have in our toolbox to be able to bring it back. What if we find out that we've extincted a species that we really need for the health of the planet to support 8 billion people on the planet, and we look in the toolbox and there's nothing that can undo it? That would not be a good day.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think about, you know, the fears of. I mean, probably already Doing it. But cloning human beings?

[Victor Viscovo]

Wow. Let's just say there's nothing that makes it impossible. We've cloned other mammal species, so one just has to wonder, has it already been done yet? In certain countries. But will it happen one day? I can't imagine it won't.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, I'm sure it will, if it hasn't already.

[Victor Viscovo]

Correct.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, I'm just. I am very interested to see, you know, the, the, the instincts. If those come back with these animals, that would be.

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, here's you.

[Sean Ryan]

What makes you just wonder, you know, how much do they learn through adolescence, you know, from nature, Nurture, biological parents and I mean, it's. That's going to be a fascinating discussion when we get there.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, here's another element that isn't widely discussed, but another key technology that Colossal is trying to develop is artificial wom for mammals.

[Sean Ryan]

Artificial what?

[Victor Viscovo]

Wombs. So you can grow the animals, not in a surrogate animal. The dire wolves that were birthed were brought into being using a canine species. But Colossal understands to get more scale, to get more animals, you would actually have to build artificial wombs. This is out of Brave New World. Okay. If you can do it for a mammal, we're mammals, too. There are a lot of next steps that come after that with human infertility and other things that I think would be societally profound. I'll just leave it at that.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on, right on. All right, Back to childhood.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, gosh.

[Sean Ryan]

So we were talking about how you became an explorer and you're into reading and you're an adventurer. But then you went to school, correct? You went to school for.

[Victor Viscovo]

I went to school a lot.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, I saw that. I mean. I mean, Stanford University, MIT and Harvard Business School all. Is this back to back?

[Victor Viscovo]

No. There were intervals to do some work, get some life experience. I test well.

[Sean Ryan]

Obviously.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What were you doing on. So what did you. Where did you go?

[Victor Viscovo]

First I went to Stanford University as an undergraduate. Go cardinal. I started as an engineer, and I was an okay engineer, but I wasn't great. So I started experimenting around. And then I found out I really loved and was better at economics and political science. And then from there I went into the business world for a year or so, and then I got a scholarship to mit and there I was in an unusual program. It was called the Defense and Arms Control Program, where we actually studied at a mathematical level, human conflict, nuclear strategy, conventional warfare. Very academic modeling and simulation of warfare kind of appealed to my academic nature. But I left the PhD program. I just Took a master's there, and then from there I went to Wall street, which sounds like a strange progression, but it's still just numbers. You're just using them in a different way. And so I went hardcore into finance for two years. I worked for about over a year in Saudi Arabia as a civilian working for the Saudi government on financial analysis. I had to learn Arabic when I was there. And then when I was done with that assignment, I was fortunate to get admitted into Harvard Business School. And I went there for two years. And in the first year at Harvard Business School, I got a strange call from our friends the U.S. navy. And they said, yeah, we've noticed you have some interesting background. You have a couple of languages. I speak French and German a little bit. And you've done this stuff at MIT with military simulations and math. You've lived in the Middle East? Yeah, we have a special program for guys like you. And so they offered me a direct commission into Naval Intelligence as an ensign in my first year of business school in 1993.

[Sean Ryan]

How'd you like that?

[Victor Viscovo]

The security review took over a year and eventually they let me in. But it was fascinating. It was perfectly suited to my personality, intelligence analysis. I was originally trained as a targeting officer because I knew enough about business. I'm also a pilot since I was 18, so I could easily interface with the pilot community on how things looked from the air, how flight operations work. But I also knew if you need to take out an oil refinery where the critical nodes probably are, what the dangers are, those types of things. And so for, yeah, for about 10 years, I was a targeting officer. I was involved in the Kosovo conflict. I was on the targeting staff in Naples, Italy, when we were bombing Serbia, directly involved in those operations and battle damage assessment. And then 911 happened, and I was mobilized and cross trained into counterterrorism. So I became a targeting officer, but for organizations and individuals, not bombing targets. And I was deployed to Pearl harbor for about a year and a half and was involved with some of the communities. Oh, really? Hostage rescue in the Philippines and other things. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Which hostage rescue in the Philippines?

[Victor Viscovo]

The Burnhams. They were two Christian missionaries that were being held by Abu Sayyaf, the Al Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines. And our job was to try and track them down and help get them out. And it's documented now in novels and other things. But we were with the other members of the community, three letter agencies, you know who they are. We were able to locate them, and we desperately wanted Seal 6 to go in and get them out of where they were in the Philippines. But the Filipinos are quite strict that US Combat forces are not allowed to conduct operations on their soil. And from what I understand, this went all the way up to the White House and it was denied. And they gave the mission over to the Filipino Rangers. And in the rescue operation, they came over the hill where the hostages were. They had undisciplined fire control. They killed one of the two American hostages by accident, and they shot Gracia Burnham, the wife, in the leg. They evacuated her, and then I was fortunate enough to do the debrief of her for about three days after that.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, man.

[Victor Viscovo]

But we learned an immense amount from her in the debrief about their operations, who they were, all that.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you want to talk about that.

[Victor Viscovo]

At all or not a lot. But I will just say that, yes, it can be very valuable to learn what people see and heard. Hostages often know a heck of a lot more than they think they do if you debrief them properly. And then that information would go right back to the community, which was therefore very useful in the subsequent years, as other teams continued, shall we say, to prosecute them very effectively.

[Sean Ryan]

Actually, let's go back to the MIT war games.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sure.

[Sean Ryan]

Can you go into a little more detail on what that is? A lot of people don't understand what war game simulation is.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sure. Unfortunately, it sounds reductionist and it doesn't sound very kind. But war is a process like any other, like business, like a football game or baseball. It can be reduced in some respects to mathematics. A larger force will almost certainly defeat a much smaller one. It's a matter of time. Well, what about different quality? Okay. That would be a factor you'd put into a mathematical equation. In fact, some people tried to reduce warfare to mathematical equations, especially after World War I, when it was very mathematical. How much artillery do you put on a target to destroy it? Then you can do this and this. And some of them are called Lanchesterian equations and others, and they're not exactly right, but they do rhyme a lot with the real world. And that was one thing that I was researching a lot was, particularly in conventional warfare, could you actually model certain aspects of combat to predict their outcomes? But more importantly than predicting the outcome, what are the most important variables that determine the outcome of a conflict? My master's thesis at MIT was figuring out what would have happened if there'd been a major war in Central Europe during the 1990s. Who would have won in the air? So I focused on the air element of a War in Central Europe. No one had really done it before. So I built a mathematical model in simulation that simulated the forces fighting each other over several months and coming up with a conclusion of. Yes, of who would win under what conditions, but also what the key variable was. What was fascinating, after doing all this research and talking to all these experts, that the number one determinant of who would win in aerial warfare, and this applies to any scenario of pilots, pilot quality, pilot quality and training. That's why the Israelis are so incredibly good. Their training is incredible. They fly all the time. They have great systems. It's less about the hardware than about the pilots. Most people don't realize 80% of the time when someone is shot down, they have no idea who shot them down. It comes out of nowhere. The aces are very rare. They're less than 5% or less of pilots in wartime. And usually pilots are either hawks or they're pigeons, as they're called. And therefore, really, air warfare is determined by the pilots.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting. What about all of warfare? What would you say the single most important aspect is? Is it logistics?

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, good for you. As Napoleon said, amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. You can have the best troops in the world, but if they don't have beans and bullets, you're going to lose. So. But that also gets into a completely separate discussion, which I know you know, you and many of your former guests have spoken about, which is counterinsurgency. I've been fascinated by at the academic level and the practical level of how to win a counterinsurgency. And it's really, really hard. And I fear that the United States just still doesn't get it. Of how you actually have to win a guerrilla war based on history.

[Sean Ryan]

How do you have to. How do you win it?

[Victor Viscovo]

There are four conditions, and they're hard. Counterinsurgency. Winning a counterinsurgency is one of the most difficult things you can do in warfare. Amphibious operations are up, right up there. But counterinsurgency is one number one. You have to isolate the battlefield. If you do not restrict the ability of guerrillas to go and rest, resupply and come back, you're almost never going to win. Every successful major counterinsurgency has done that. We did not do it in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh Trail. We did not do it in Iraq, Iran and Syria. We did not do it in Afghanistan, Pakistan. How can you hope to win? We were in Afghanistan for 20 years. We never sealed the border. So they were constantly able to rejuvenate. Regeneration is the dirty secret of counterinsurgencies. As I'm sure you know, you can kill and kill and kill your adversaries, but they're going to keep regenerating if you don't cut them off from their base of supply. Number two, you have to isolate the population. We started doing that in the latter stages of Vietnam, and it was somewhat successful, but the British did it ruthlessly and very effectively during the Boer War. And the British won the, the counterinsurgency known as the Boer War in the early 1900s. And they, they put the population in camps where they could not support and interact with the guerrillas. Number three, you do have to have hunt and seek and destroy missions. You do have to hunt down the bad guys and keep them on the run and exhaust them just like a wolf going after a buffalo. Run and run until they're exhausted and then you can take care of them. And if they can't, then regenerate. You're winning. And then number four, very importantly, you have to have institutions in place that can take over when you leave. Solid institutions. Americans, wonderful as we are, we think democracy is the answer to everything. And I love democracy. But we have to acknowledge that there are some cultures and places in the world that don't have institutions or cultures strong enough to handle the rough and tumble of democratic institutions that can be easily corrupted. You need enduring situations. The United States has won a guerrilla war. We've actually won two in our history. We won it against the indigenous peoples of this continent, and it was ruthless. We isolated them from the battlefield. We basically put the population on reservations. The cavalry hunted down the warriors, and we had an institution, the United States government, that could take over and endure. Those are the conditions you need. And if you look back at the counterinsurgencies you fought in, your friends fought in, the political and high level leadership of this country did not accept what I believe are the four critical conditions to win a counterinsurgency. And we will continue to lose unless we do.

[Sean Ryan]

Yep, I'm 100% with you on that one. And it makes a hell of a lot of sense, but yeah, it's just thinking about Afghanistan is frustrating.

[Victor Viscovo]

I did it from the intel side. We were tracking HVTs, high value targets. And just like you guys in the field, I know I was a real echelon jerk, but we could see it from a higher level saying, what are you guys doing? These guys are risking their lives getting up at dawn to go take down hard targets. They're just going to regenerate. How are we solving the root cause of this Problem. And oh, by the way, if we ever leave, it'll collapse in weeks because these institutions are non existent. We all saw it at the middle level, but no one paid attention. Everybody was just go along to get along, you know, let me get my next promotion, let me get out of this billet. And it just continued and continued and continued. There was never any strategy to either win the war, but we're not going to deploy the resources to do that. We were not going to deploy 200,000 U.S. troops to SEAL the border with Pakistan. So you kind of have to accept reality and say we're not really good at nation building or counterinsurgency as a culture. We're not ruthless enough. How did the Romans deal with counterinsurgency? They would eliminate a third of the population. We're not going to do that. But that's what it takes sometimes to win against determined adversaries in a guerrilla situation.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. It got got to the point where I think a lot of people just, they were on the ground over there, they just, I mean we're like what, what, what the hell are we doing over here? This isn't working.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And it's almost like they wanted to prolong it. I have thoughts on that. But you know, it's a big money making machine.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. I also think that hope springs eternal and you know, you get deployed to Afghanistan, you want to make a difference, especially mid level or the, even the brass and they think no, we'll win hearts and minds. We'll, we'll kill just enough of the most important people. We'll, we'll just get through. We'll, we'll do it different this time. This time it's different. Some of those dangerous words in the English language, but so it's not pure, you know, capitalistic motivation. I think people truly do want to succeed. The military has a real can do spirit. They don't want to admit, no sir, we probably can't do that. We probably can't win that conflict. They don't want to be that guy going to the Oval Office making that statement.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about, I mean we already talked about some of them, but your investments.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sure.

[Sean Ryan]

And your firm.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What are you excited about? We already talked about colossal.

[Victor Viscovo]

Right. Well those are my more recent ones. For 20 years I did industrial private equity. I was hardcore capitalist. I mean I was investing in metal fabrication business. I even had a metal recycling company in Ohio that did copper and zinc. We invested in an eyeglass manufacturing plant. These were hardcore. And we were really trying to bring industry back into the United States. I think we were a little bit ahead of the curve where we were trying to bring stuff back very difficult because things are expensive in the US compared to other parts of the country. But lately, as I've gotten older in life, I think it's much more exciting to invest in breakthrough technologies and try and move the needle for the human experience. What can we do that actually will change people's lives significantly that also have profit potential? But in some respects, I think there's almost a responsibility for people that have some degree of means that when they do invest, they should invest such that yes, you want a reasonable chance of making a decent return, if not a great one. But even if you fail, you want to have moved the needle forward in human progress. If Astroforged doesn't work out and we don't mind asteroids, I guarantee you the money I put into that business will have advanced the technology for deep space exploration and I will be happy. And I think if more people did that on the high net worth aspect, that we could move us forward faster as a species and as a country.

[Sean Ryan]

Astroforge is an awesome company. Well, that's how we connected with.

[Victor Viscovo]

That's great.

[Sean Ryan]

I can't remember the year off the top of my head that they're hoping to land on one.

[Victor Viscovo]

Do you remember next year?

[Sean Ryan]

Next year?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, we're sending the Vestry probe.

[Sean Ryan]

Man, that's awesome.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, we'll see. It's a high risk venture. We all get. We all agree that it is, but it is a lot of math and it's been done before. We have landed on comets or asteroids and brought material back that was done by NASA and the Japanese. We're just trying to do it commercially. It's been done three times, very small amounts.

[Sean Ryan]

How, how, how recent?

[Victor Viscovo]

Last several years. I should know the date, but yeah, they did. And they brought it back into hard re entry. They brought. They landed on the comet, they got some material and they brought it back to Earth and it screamed in and impacted and they retrieved the material.

[Sean Ryan]

What did we learn?

[Victor Viscovo]

Don't know yet.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Victor Viscovo]

Hasn't killed us yet. I don't know.

[Sean Ryan]

What are some of the other ones that you're excited about?

[Victor Viscovo]

I'm also involved in a company that's trying to do industrial automation of shipbuilding like the current administration, but also the ones before it. We all know that we have 1% of the capacity that China has to build ships and we're not going to solve it by throwing labor at the problem. We don't have enough, and it's too expensive. We have to utilize higher technology solutions. So a company I'm involved in is trying to develop the robots, the visual systems, the tracking, to be able to fabricate pieces for naval vessels much more cheaply, effectively, and reliably, not using as much human labor. And it's difficult. But we're hoping that we're going to make some progress there. So there's that. I'm CEO of a life sciences company that I am personally funding that we're trying to solve for curing some incurable diseases that reside in the human nervous system. Can't talk too much about that. We're hopefully going to go to the FDA within the next one to two years for safety testing. That would be some breakthrough technology. It uses artificial viruses to deliver genetically modified material to hunt down and kill rogue disease DNA in our systems.

[Sean Ryan]

No kidding.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Can. Can you say any name, any of the diseases?

[Victor Viscovo]

No.

[Sean Ryan]

No. Damn it.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sorry. We're keeping under wraps for now. I don't like advertising too much, what I do, whether in exploration or technology, I like to do things first and then talk about them because I also don't like the time pressure or expectation building that comes with, oh, look at what we're doing. I like to be able to do things deliberately and patiently and keep my team insulated from pressure. It's worked so far.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. Makes a hell of a lot of sense.

[Victor Viscovo]

You guys didn't go advertise your missions before you went on them, right? No, same principle.

[Sean Ryan]

At least we weren't supposed to. Yeah, but. But. And then you took up an interest in flying as well.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, I wanted to be a military pilot when I was a young boy. Wanted to be an astronaut and wanted to fly F15s or F18s, but my eyesight was very poor. So they said, oh, we're going to put you in a missile silo in Dakota. I went, nah, and I don't think so. That's not going to happen. And so first thing I did when I got to college and away from home, I paid for my own flying lessons, learned how to fly, and I've been flying ever since. If it's got a stick in an engine, I've probably been in it. Helicopters, gliders, seaplanes. I love them all. I flew here today.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on, right on. And then one company that I did want to ask you about is stratospheric airships. Yeah. Psy. Is that how you say it? Sky.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sky. It's founded and run by a very well off Danish businessman who invented the Life Straw. Actually, that's a ton of those. Yeah, he actually developed the technology for those. That's how he made his fortune. And now he's investing his fortune, which I greatly respect, into a stratospheric airship that will float above the earth in relatively calm air and act as a relay for cell phone signals, but also for staring reconnaissance, for environmental monitoring, but also potential offshore monitoring of our oceans as well as military applications, et cetera. And it fills that middle ground between satellites in low earth orbit that are zipping by that only have specific dwell times and cell phone towers that can only go so high. And so they are building and testing an airship in New Mexico. It's going very well. And we already, I believe, have some initial clients in areas that have mountainous terrain where cell phone towers have very poor coverage and satellites are zipping along too fast to have good reliable coverage. So we'll see. That's another game changing technology that hopefully works.

[Sean Ryan]

Very interesting. How do you, I mean, how do you come in contact with all these interesting folks?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, I met Mikkel, the CEO at the Explorers Club. It's all these people that have very ambitious ideas. They tend to operate at the edge of risk and yet they're very methodical about how they do things.

[Sean Ryan]

What is the Explorers Club?

[Victor Viscovo]

The Explorers Club is a very old institution. Again, I believe it was founded back at the turn of the century. Based in New York, it's kind of an offshoot from the Royal Geographic Society in Britain. I think us Americans said, well, that's a pretty cool thing. We want our own. And so we started the Explorers Club. Some of the first members and honorees were Lindbergh, you know, Amundsen, some of the great Explorers, Byrd, the people that found the poles, all these other things. And it's just continued to the present day. And it just is a congregation of people that meet once a year in New York, but also other times as well. And we celebrate different successes, try and push each other, continuing to push the boundaries and exploration.

[Sean Ryan]

How many people are a part of that?

[Victor Viscovo]

Gosh, oh, easily above a thousand, but not more than several thousand. It's semi exclusive. You have to be out there doing things. It's not a membership club or a debate club. I'll bet you've got to be, in a way, kind of like you've got to be an operator.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll bet that is some fascinating conversation down there.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

So you guys meet once a year?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. In New York. It's a lot of fun.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll bet. I'll bet. I'll bet you hear some wild stuff.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. I mean, you have some. You have the greatest mountain climbers in the world, the greatest ocean explorers, the greatest botanists, the greatest volcanists, people that go into volcanoes. I mean, it's just nuts.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn. I mean, that's a man. I would love to be a part of that. That's. That's awesome.

[Victor Viscovo]

If you'd like an invitation, I can get you to the next one in April. It'd be an honor to have you at my table.

[Sean Ryan]

Absolutely.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, you'd meet some interesting people.

[Sean Ryan]

That would be incredible. I mean, people going into volcano. I mean, it's just everything, right?

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh. I took a volcanist who had studied underwater volcanoes for her whole career. She was from Germany. She had never even seen one or been one up close. I got to take her down in my submersible into a submerged volcano in the Red Sea. It was so fun. That was really cool. One thing that was great about being able to build my submersible and take it all over the world, I was able to share the experience with people that had never been able to experience these things. They had dedicated their lives to studying deep ocean trenches, underwater volcanoes, the abyssal plains, and providing a tool for the first time that could allow them to go anywhere on the seafloor repeatedly and safely. That was one of the biggest achievements I'm happy I was able to do in my life, was help make that technology available.

[Sean Ryan]

How long have you had this submersible?

[Victor Viscovo]

I don't have it anymore. I built it and operated it for about six years, dove it for four of them, and then I sold it to a marine research organization. I sold it to Inkfish, which is founded by Gabe Newell, the American billionaire who founded the Steam Game Network. And he's done amazing things with the submersible. He bought the whole system, including, you know, employed my whole team because they knew what they were doing. And they're out in the Pacific continuing to do amazing scientific work in the deep ocean trenches. They went and explored the volcano that exploded off Tonga. They wanted to see what changed environmentally and underneath the ocean in terms of the plate tectonics and things. So it's all one small but highly effective community. We all try and work together for the health of the oceans.

[Sean Ryan]

I love that. You know, I read that I just interviewed the gentleman that is the CEO of the metals company.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Mr. And he seemed like a conservationalist to me, but it sounds like you are totally against the collection of those nodules at the bottom of the ocean floor.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yes, we have a very strong difference of opinion. He is the CEO of, of a company that is dedicated to retrieving polymetallic nodules from the seafloor. That's his job. He gets paid a great deal of money to do that and he has investors that he has spent over $700 million of their money to pursue that. So I think it's important that he has to have that perspective, that it is going to be transformational, that it is amazingly effective, et cetera. I strongly disagree as someone who has directly operated heavy equipment below 4 and 5,000 meters. But there are so many issues that I have with deep sea mining. Most criticism of deep sea mining has come from the environmental aspect. And I think that yes, it will destroy everything on the seafloor. I think there's very little doubt about that. Even I think he admits that it's better to mine where there's less life than more life, like in the rainforest of Indonesia. I think that's a false equivalence because you can also get these metals from Australia, the desert outback, from the tundra of Canada. It's a way of marketing, of putting the worst possible comparison and saying well of course we wouldn't do that, we'd do this other thing. But the major point is environmentalism is one element of it. I think technically it's going to be far more difficult than they realize to operate these multi ton machines at depths greater than The Titanic, operating 24 7, pulling up 4 tons per minute in freezing cold water, 5,000 pounds per square inch on every portion of these vehicles trying to lift heavy rocks 4,000 meters up. It is not a simple operation. It's not as simple as I think they make it out to be. It's nothing like oil drilling. It's nothing like laying pipes or cables on the bottom. This is hardcore industrial operation on the seafloor with no human supervision. That's just a technical aspect, but more importantly we're kind of getting into it on deep sea mining. But there are only four metals that you can get from polymetallic nodules and he correctly outlined them. Copper, manganese, cobalt and nickel. Copper and manganese are quite common from terrestrial mines. In fact, at maximum production rate, according to the metalist company's own financials that they have published, at maximum rate they would produce less than 0.3% of world copper production. When they get going. It's just not a lot. The terrestrial mining Industry is enormous, so there's a question of relevance. You don't need the copper from the sea floor. It's less than 0.3% of what they that they would bring up manganese that is primarily produced by South Africa and Gabon. Last I heard, they were reasonable allies of the United States. It's not dominated by China and it doesn't come from rainforests. The real metals that matter for deep sea mining are cobalt and nickel. And the reason they got so much traction in the early 2000 and twenties was because electrical vehicles burst onto the stage. And most electric vehicle batteries at that time used nickel and cobalt. Cobalt went up to $70000 a ton at one point. Nickel went up to $60000 a ton at one point. $30000. Excuse me. However, capitalism does what capitalism does. Those metals are expensive. And now there's been significant technological change in the chemistry of the batteries. Most batteries for electric vehicles now produced in the world use no nickel and no cobalt. That was not the case five years ago. The prices of those metals have gone down precipitously. Cobalt is now down to $30,000 a ton. And that's only because there was such an oversupply of cobalt in the last year that the main exporter, the Democratic Republic of Congo, halted exports of it. The price of nickel has come down to $15,000 a ton from $70,000 a ton. It's on the downslope. If you look at the financial projections of Mr. Barron's company, they are projecting prices to come back up. That stands in contrast to the technological substitution that's happening for those metals for lithium iron phosphate batteries and now sodium ion batteries, which are simply batteries that use cheaper materials. They're not quite as good batteries as those that use nickel and cobalt, but they're good enough. They're good enough such that the vast majority of vehicles now produced in China with electric vehicle batteries use no nickel, no cobalt. It's all lithium iron phosphate. So there are technological issues, there are technical ones. And then being a nerdy finance guy like myself, really digging into their financial projections and seeing how they're trying to say that they're going to make lots of money. I can go into very specific reasons why, but as a financial professional and venture capitalist, I simply don't agree with their numbers. I think they're fanciful, interesting perspectives. It is. And you know, there's plenty of room for the debate and they have very strong viewpoint. But I think they cannot deny the fact that polymetallic nodules really only yield four metals. Two of them are very common, and two of them are increasingly irrelevant. And then there's the whole strategic angle with China. That's been the big pivot that the company did in the last year. Two or three years ago, they were saying, oh, we are the source for electric vehicle batteries. Well, I think that narrative wasn't working well. They almost ran out of cash in April. They only had $4 million of cash left on their balance sheet in April. That's when they made the big pivot to the Trump administration to mine the sea floor without a permit from the UN Regulatory agency. You know, go, America, go alone. We're going to break China's strategic monopoly on metals. But even Mr. Baron made a very good point. He said the reason China dominates all of these metal supply chains, which they do, is because they dominate the processing of the metal. They don't get the ore, the rock, from China. They get it from Indonesia. They get it from other locations and then they process it and then they export it to us in other countries. How do you break the Chinese dominance of the metal supply chain? I'm here to tell you it would be extremely hard and very expensive. Let's take nickel, for example. Nickel is now primarily mined in Indonesia and it's now processed in Indonesia. And those processing facilities are heavily financed by China. That's how China secured the nickel supply chain. It kind of owns it with Indonesia. Between Indonesia and China, those countries have five times more people than the United States. They have a very low labor cost structure. They've been processing nickel for 30 years. They know all the secrets of how to do it efficiently. And they have a government that's dedicated to dominating that market. So you can see, for America to actually break that supply chain, it's not where you get the rocks. It's not whether you get them from Indonesia or Australia, where you can get a lot of nickel or the sea floor. What matters is where you process them. And oh, by the way, it's extremely environmentally toxic to process these metals. So to break a metal supply chain, whether it's nickel or cobalt or many of these others, you would have to make massive, multi billion dollar investments and subsidize them going forward to break that monopoly or higher cost. Nobody wants metal processing facilities in their backyard. You'll face environmental lawsuit after environmental lawsuit, people saying, not in my backyard. And you'll be faced with an adversary that's going to fight on price. And again, it doesn't matter where you get the ore. The metals company and mining the seafloor is Irrelevant to that equation, where you process it. But the United States, I don't think we really understand the commitment you're going to have to make to fight the deeply entrenched economic advantages that China and its allies have over the US.

[Sean Ryan]

That makes a hell of a lot of sense.

[Victor Viscovo]

Trust me. I want to do it as much as anyone. I've invested in Astroforge, which is completely different. There we're going for platinum group metals. They're not even the same metals. They're completely not the same thing. But the issue is I'm an American, I served in our military. I want us to be a dominant metal supplier. I want us to have strategic capabilities. But the issue is there are hard realistic facts in the world. We do not have huge deposits of nickel and cobalt in the US we do have copper. And copper. We're opening up a great new mine in Arizona that'll supply a lot of copper to the United States. Those are great investments. I love what the administration has done with a direct investment into a rare earth metal mining company in the US I think that's a great move. I think that we should work much more closely with Australia, the Philippines and New Caledonia, which have terrestrial sources of Oregon, that if we choose to make the multi billion dollar investments in processing in the US we could do that. That's what China did. They went to Indonesia and locked up Indonesia in this partnership to produce a lot of strategic metals. We could do the same, but they don't have to go from the sea floor. In fact, I just think it's not going to be economically valuable to do it. Use the tried and true technology and mine it in Australia or some of these other mines with our allies. That would be the way to counter their strategy. I think it's just. It's a very expensive way to get metal and there are only a couple of them that you need. And by the way, there are no rare earth metals in seafloor nodules. There are only trace amounts. And that's another dirty. People say that there are because I think it helps support the national security angle. But look at any academic paper. There are no economic quantities of rare earth metals in seafloor nodules. There just aren't.

[Sean Ryan]

That's interesting. So you think the answer is to partner with Australia and these other countries and have them mine and process. We buy.

[Victor Viscovo]

I think Australia is the real key. We also have a deep military partnership now with Australia. I can't think of a better partnership than we supply them nuclear submarines and they supply us nickel, cobalt, and all these other raw ores that we would then process in the U.S. again, if we're willing to make the most massive economic and environmental sacrifices to process metal.

[Sean Ryan]

In the US do they have the processing plants there?

[Victor Viscovo]

They could, but they're also a western liberal democracy, but they are in the far western desert, so it might be simpler for them to do it. It's possible that gets into geopolitical negotiations, but basically replicating China's strategy, but for Australia, but also other countries for manganese, South Africa for nickel, you could also go to New Caledonia. All these other countries. There's a method to do it, but it's disconnected to needing to go to the sea floor.

[Sean Ryan]

Very interesting. Very interesting. Let's take a break.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sure.

[Sean Ryan]

When we come back, I want to talk about all of the exploring that you've done and probably start with the Titanic.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sure. Everybody. Well, everybody loves to talk about Titanic.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll bet. I'll bet. All right, Victor, we're back from the break. Nice shot, by the way.

[Victor Viscovo]

Thank you. Wow.

[Sean Ryan]

You impressed me.

[Victor Viscovo]

I know. You're very kind.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you like better, the revolver or that gto?

[Victor Viscovo]

A GTO is pretty special.

[Sean Ryan]

You like that gto?

[Victor Viscovo]

I love revolvers. Any firearm. They all have their unique characteristics, even shotguns. But, yeah, that was a pretty nice experience.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I decided to get you another gift.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, Lord.

[Sean Ryan]

So.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, my goodness.

[Sean Ryan]

Here we go.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, no, no, no. That is too kind, Sean. That is sound like. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my gosh. That's above and beyond.

[Sean Ryan]

You got to pick it up. You got to pick it up.

[Victor Viscovo]

Above and beyond.

[Sean Ryan]

So, yeah, the smile on your face out there shooting that damn thing, I was like, oh, shit. He's got to have one with the red dot. Those are brand new. So that, you know that compensator up front that helps with the Recoil Management? That's SIG's latest, latest release in handguns. It's their first attempt at the 2011. I think they did a awesome job.

[Victor Viscovo]

This is completely unnecessary and deeply appreciated. This is a magnificent gift. It's on par with my Kimber 1911, which was given to me by someone I used to work with who's a Marine.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, really?

[Victor Viscovo]

Caisson.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn.

[Victor Viscovo]

So that was a special gift, but this is equally as special. I appreciate it very much.

[Sean Ryan]

My pleasure. My pleasure.

[Victor Viscovo]

Outstanding. Yeah, I'm glad I'm flying myself back. I. I won't have a problem with security, but.

[Sean Ryan]

So, yeah, you just. You crushed it out there with that. So I thought, this guy's got to have One. Got to have one.

[Victor Viscovo]

I'll treat it with disrespect. It, it is owed.

[Sean Ryan]

But, you know, right before the break, we were talking about China's declining population and. Yeah, we talk about China a lot here. Probably at least 50% of the episodes it gets brought up one way or another. And you, you just had some interesting stuff to say, so could you dive into that a little bit? We were talking about, you know, before the break, we were talking about the metals company and, and how China has basically monopolized the nickel and.

[Victor Viscovo]

And metal supply chains.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, the metal supply chain. And so you had some interesting thoughts off camera. I just thought we should revisit those.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, I just start off with the preamble that China has some extraordinary structural advantages against the United States that you just simply can't deny. It has three times our population. It's as large as the US and they are very set on dominating certain industries, certain supply chains, et cetera. And they have the resources to deploy government funds to, to do that. We simply don't have some of those capabilities in the US for every engineer we throw at a problem, they can throw three. For every laborer that we can throw at a problem, they can throw three. And with their allies, even more so, they have built in financial and cost advantages, and they don't care that much about the environment, so they don't have to worry about environmental review in the US which is actually a really big deal to build new things in the US So they don't have a lot of the constraints we do. That doesn't mean that they're an unstoppable force.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think their engineers are equivalent to ours?

[Victor Viscovo]

That's a very broad general statement. In general, I would say probably not. Ours tend to have more creativity. I think in general, they tend to be very good. If they're given specific tasks like get cost out of this part or figure out this process, and they'll just apply resources until they get it done. But it was Americans that came up with the lithium iron phosphate battery, for example, but they figured out how to make it in volume cheaply. That's a great example of that. So the issue is they have some resources that we simply can't replicate and a will at the government level to do things that we simply can't do. In a democracy, that is tough. But they do have challenges. One, they have not fought a major conflict in a very long time, and they have certainly not fought a maritime conflict. So when you're talking about Taiwan undertaking the most Difficult military conventional operation around an amphibious invasion. They haven't done it. I don't even think they did it in the Middle Ages. That would be a completely new problem for them. And anyone that studies history knows the first time you do anything in the military severe it doesn't go that well. So I think they know that they're also a very intelligent culture. They calculate odds, they're not reckless. And so I think that they're trying to judge the situation to their maximum benefit. And I think the United States especially most recently, but even with the previous administration, more attempts have been made to pivot to Asia and we are increasing the deterrent capability of the United States to say the odds aren't for certain that you could succeed in a military intervention in Taiwan. And the more we can do that and show resolve, show more systems that could complicate their war planning, the greater the chances that they would go. It's not as sure a thing as we think it is. Let's try other means. But then in the long run, I think China has crested in terms of population. And with the one child policy they had for so long that is now coming back to harm them in a major way, their population is going to precipitate, precipitously decline over the next 40 or 50 years. They will have serious social issues with that exacerbated by the fact that there's a severe male female imbalance in the country. And anyone that studies history knows that declining standards of living, which go hand in hand with a declining population combined with a male female imbalance often lead to severe popular instability for governments. I think China's going to have its hands full with domestic problems in the next 10 years, 20 years.

[Sean Ryan]

What kind of, I mean, has this already started?

[Victor Viscovo]

I mean, you're starting to see the edges of it.

[Sean Ryan]

How fast is their population declining? Because we're at what it's going to.

[Victor Viscovo]

Be below a billion by the end of the century, which is unbelievable. They're going to be, I think at people correct me in the comments, I'm sure, but around 800 million by the end of the century, which is 70 years, which is a whole generation. The United States is going to be growing and frankly some of that's because of immigration, to be quite frank. But also we have a little bit more of a stable population compared to what they did with their one child policy.

[Sean Ryan]

We're at a 1.6 reproduction rate, correct?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, we're still. Well, the whole industrialized world is below natural replacement rate, but China is really Falling off a cliff even faster. I think the world leader right now is South Korea where they are already facing severe issues with depopulation. But the issue there is if you don't have the population, you can't build the level of military might. You need to start imposing your will on other countries and it causes social instability. If you have a mess at home, it's really hard to do too much with confidence on the international stage. So I think China may have missed the best window to do something militarily with China. Best time would have been during COVID but I think now the US is deploying enough assets to make it even more difficult for them in Taiwan as well. And I think that we're certainly not out of the woods, but they're certainly not an unstoppable force. And conducting a military invasion of Taiwan would be extraordinarily difficult.

[Sean Ryan]

I don't think. I personally, I mean I went to Taiwan and interviewed the vice president there and you know, they are very concerned about a military kinetic, kinetic type operation. But just from my observations, I've talked about this a lot on the show with, with, with a lot of different people. I mean it seems, it seems like, I think that their best interest and I think that they know this would be the cognitive warfare and to, you know, because there's a two party system in Taiwan and one of the parties is very pro Chinese.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And so to spread that propaganda, you know, throughout Taiwan, that could be, it could just be a, you know, a political takeover. That does it. Yeah.

[Victor Viscovo]

The model that they would most likely do is what they did with Hong Kong, which was slowly work the geopolitical stage, the treaties, hybrid warfare to effectively get control and then make it more and more assertive over time. I think that's what they're going to probably realize that they're going to have to try to do with Taiwan, that a pure kinetic solution is going to be too risky for them and they are risk averse. They don't roll the dice like Putin will with Ukraine. They're going to think very methodically about it and I think they'll come to the conclusion that it's a low odds shot. So they're going to have to do other methods. I think a blockade under certain situations might benefit them and that would be tough for us to combat and could lead to a wider war. But no, I think that they are smart enough to say let's build the forces to apply pressure. But the real avenue of success for China to regain Taiwan would. To your point, I Believe be through the political realm using the dark arts there.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you have any.

[Victor Viscovo]

And by the way, I served the last assignment I had in the military. I was assigned to the intelligence staff of the 7th Fleet. And so we were positioned against China and Korea. So I was privy to war games and all sorts of things involving a kinetic situation with China.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you have any numbers as far as just how imbalanced the male to female population is in China?

[Victor Viscovo]

I haven't looked at that closely, but we all know it's there.

[Sean Ryan]

How long do you know how long the one child policy was in, was in place?

[Victor Viscovo]

It was for many decades.

[Sean Ryan]

It was for many decades.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh wow. So all, I mean basically just for the audience that doesn't know this, I mean China has a, had a one child policy and overwhelmingly the female, the females were aborted because everybody wanted or worse after birth. Yeah.

[Victor Viscovo]

Certainly happened. But I believe Oregon it wasn't just one generation. Multiple. It was multiple generations which will have a profound effect which if you just look, go to Google and look up population projections for China and it, it does this and it looks like a ski jump ramp going down. Now they've crested.

[Sean Ryan]

That is the first time I've heard anybody say that the US had an a, an up.

[Victor Viscovo]

Shrinking like China is. But it's actually among the industrialized countries. It's, I mean it's among the healthier ones, but the bar is pretty low at this point.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Victor Viscovo]

A lot of our allied countries in Europe are having much more difficult times. Italy, Japan is in a very bad situation like South Korea. It's just, you have a world that we've created that's so comfortable and people are risk averse and there are so many distractions that we have that people aren't committed to family. I mean pot calling the kettle black. I've chosen. I've never been married or had kids, but I have had other endeavors that occupied my time that I prioritized. You can only do so much in life and I know my purpose has been to explore and to push different boundaries. I'm expendable. So I've accepted that. I've accepted my expendability. So I, I tend to push the envelope. It's. It's nice to know one's role in life.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm just curious. I mean through all the expeditions and exploring and just all of the accomplished accomplishments that you, you have, I mean, do you, do you ever get lonely? Not having a significant other, not having kids? I mean, do you think about that kind of stuff?

[Victor Viscovo]

Sometimes, but not to the extent that people would think. I know good friends of mine who, from an early age, you know, they really wanted to have a family, a wife and kids, that type of thing. Some people are just built for that. And for me, it was always something that was not as important. I was always much more focused on my career, on the military or explorations and what I've learned in life. If you have a family, if you have, you know, a wife and kids, they have to be your first priority. Absolutely. You know, God, country as well. But yeah, you know, career, explorations, things like that, those are going to have to be secondary. I was not willing to do that and. But that's why I also push the boundaries further than. Further than most people, I think.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think that'll ever change?

[Victor Viscovo]

No, no. Deeply hardwired, no interest.

[Sean Ryan]

No interest in.

[Victor Viscovo]

I'm too. You know, people don't change.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Let's move into some of the expeditions that you've done. I'm dying to hear.

[Victor Viscovo]

Sure.

[Sean Ryan]

About the Titanic.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, the Titanic. Everybody loves to talk about Titanic. Titanic. I guess the best way to start the story of my. I did three dives to Titanic. My team did five. We were the first crewed mission people actually going to visit the wreck in 15 years. And we did that in 2019. It took us two tries. The first try we got out there and there was a hurricane and we couldn't dive the sub. But we went the following year. So on the very first dive, you know, it was my system, my crew. I said, I want to take it down solo. No one had ever done that solo. Yeah. So now I've been quoted as saying, and it's true, probably the most dangerous dive I ever did, including the ones the Mariana Trench, the most dangerous one was the first dive I did at the Titanic solo. And the reason why wrecks are very dangerous because they have cables and ropes. And the number one danger to a submersible is getting entangled the propellers with a rope or a cable. You can't go out there and untangle it. You have to rely on a single switch to eject that part of the exterior that is entangled. And if that switch doesn't work, you're out of luck. So it's kind of dangerous. The currents at the Titanic, especially the day I did my first dive, were very strong about a knot, knot and a half, which doesn't sound like a lot, but that's the maximum speed of the sub. So there were times when I was at maximum power and I wasn't moving, which meant that I could be thrown into the wreck with all sorts of bad consequences. Plus, it's very dark down there. Most people think if you go to the Titanic, you'll see the wreck. You don't. You see a very limited amount, like 30 or 40 meters maximum. Really only about 20 because there's so much stuff in the water. So you're only looking at it, like through a straw here and there. It's cool, don't get me wrong. But it's not like seeing the grand vista of the wreck. You're seeing it only in particles at a time. You get a better view of the Titanic on the recent special that was done by Atlantic Productions that showed a virtual creation of the wreck on the sea floor all at once. I saw that for the first time, went, wow. It's like the first time I've really seen the wreck. And I've been there three times. So first dive, I went down, and half the time I was looking inside the sub at the sonar display, and the other half of the time I'm trying to look outside the window to see how close I am to the wreck, et cetera. That's really dangerous. What I learned on that dive, you need one person on the inside monitoring the instruments and the sonar, one person staring outside for obstructions. So that first eye was tricky.

[Sean Ryan]

So how close did you get to it?

[Victor Viscovo]

Okay, so the first time I went to Titanic, I'm solo in the sub. They drop you a couple hundred meters away from it so you don't land on it. That's a requirement. So I get in the sub, I get to the sea floor. I'm at 4,000 meters or so, and I start creeping up to what I think is the direction of the wreck. At about 100 meters off, I get the first ping on the sonar. You see it like on a description display. Oh, hey, there's something out there. And then I get closer and closer, and now I'm like 40 meters away, the maximum extent of my lights. I'm looking out the window. I see nothing but black. I start inching the sub closer. Now I'm 20 meters away from what's on the sonar. This big jumbled mass of something. Okay, is that a rock? Is something wrong with the sonar? I'm looking out the window. Nothing but black. So I inch the sub really close. I'm like 5 meters from this big sonar target in front of me. I'm looking out the window. Nothing but black ocean. And then it hit me. I went, oh. I slowly Started to go up in the submarine, and within a second or two, I saw the first row of portals and then the next row of portals and then the next, and then the railing. I didn't realize how big it was. Wow. So my first experience with the Titanic was this realization of this is a big wreck. And then, of course, when I got to the railing, the way the current was hitting the side of the Titanic and it pushed the sub, like, towards the wreck, right into it. And I didn't hit it. I did an emergency maneuver with the thrusters and regained control, calmed down a little bit, and then I was able to do the classic tour of the bow and get good video of it and slowly start surveying the wreck. And then did that for a couple of hours. And then the front and the back of the ship, the bow and the stern, they're separated by several hundred meters. So it's kind of cool. The way you get to the stern is you go to a point on the bow section of the wreck and you basically you put yourself in a certain position that you get briefed on, then you point the submersible in a certain exact direction and then just go on that vector for about 40 minutes. And then by going on that vector, you'll go through the debris field, you'll see some cool stuff on the bottom, and then you'll come to the bottom, the aft of the wreck, which is just a shambles. And that's how you survey the Titanic. After the four hours I did doing that, I mean, I was. I was ready to come up.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll bet. I'll bet. Was it eerie down there? I mean, how many.

[Victor Viscovo]

It was. It was just me and the wreck. It was spooky, I'll bet. I will confess. In fact, at one point, the lights of my submarine were shining into the wreck through the glass portals, almost like you could see someone with a light inside. It was weird. Now there are no bodies there. The bodies have been consumed by the ocean. And you don't really see that much in terms of personal artifacts, but it's like a big, jumbled, dark, spooky museum.

[Sean Ryan]

What depth is it?

[Victor Viscovo]

3960 meters. It's very deep. I mean, challenger deep is 11,000. So, in fact. In fact, for my submersible, the Titanic wasn't even deep enough to qualify as a deep dive.

[Sean Ryan]

No kidding.

[Victor Viscovo]

In terms of the maintenance records, yeah, it was considered below 4000 meters. Was not even considered a dive. It was too shallow.

[Sean Ryan]

What specifically drew you to going to the Titanic three separate times?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, we were there on one expedition, so we did five dives over about a week, a week and a half. And the reason we went Titanic was we were going to the bottom of all five of the world's oceans. And at one point we had to go to the Arctic Ocean, and we were going through the Panama Canal. We drew a line from the Panama Canal to where we were going in the Arctic, and it was like, right over the Titanic. So we're like going, guys, we got Titanic. We're going right over it. So we contacted National Geographic and they were really excited that we could do a dive there. So we filmed it. And we didn't take people down commercially. We. We did a film expedition for Nat Geo.

[Sean Ryan]

What went wrong with that sub?

[Victor Viscovo]

That.

[Sean Ryan]

What happened there?

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, the Titan. Two of my friends were on it. Someone who worked for me. Yeah, P.H. nargiolet and Hamish Harding, who I actually went to space with as well. He and I went to the bottom of Challenger Deep. We set a distance record at Challenger Deep. And then he really, really wanted to go to Titanic, and I wasn't doing that anymore. And I wasn't taking people down anyway. And he really wanted to see it. And I. The last phone conversation I had with him, I said, do not get in that submersible. It is inherently dangerous. You're playing Russian roulette getting in that thing. And he said, well, I think it's safe enough. I said, you're a grown man. You can take the risk, but I'm telling you, don't go near it. And he died. Damn. It was structurally deficient. It was operated in an unsafe manner. This has all been well covered by the U.S. coast Guard report. It was a slapdash operation. They didn't have enough funding to do it correctly or well, and they had to keep going because if they ever stopped for safety, the whole show would have stopped. And the owner, Stockton Rush, who I knew and had conversations with to stop what he was doing, he. He couldn't stop.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn.

[Victor Viscovo]

Never get into a vehicle where their fear of failure is greater than their fear of dying.

[Sean Ryan]

Good advice. Good advice.

[Victor Viscovo]

They did. You want people that are a little bit nervous, they're more careful that way. And I can't tell you how many times I aborted a submersible dive because I wasn't comfortable with a piece of equipment, the environmental conditions, or any number of things. I'd say, nope, not today. It's probably why I'm still here.

[Sean Ryan]

You found two of the deepest wrecks, Correct.

[Victor Viscovo]

I'm really proud of Those dives, those were the most exciting dives. We found the two deepest shipwrecks in history. The USS Johnston in 2021, and then the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a destroyer escort, both went down during the largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Specifically the battle off Samar, which was a part of the larger battle where a small destroyer flotilla took on the cream of the Japanese Navy, including the largest battleship ever constructed, the Yamato. So few people know about this battle in 1944, where American sailors, with complete and utter disregard for their own safety, charged, in some cases without orders, directly into the teeth of Japanese battleship squadrons to protect the small escort carriers they were guarding. It was the epitome of what we hope for in the naval service in terms of bravery and duty and all those other wonderful things. And they won. By the end of the day, they had attacked with such ferocity, including with the naval aviators that were also doing incredibly brave things. The Japanese taking significant casualties from these tiny ships that they actually thought were cruisers, that they turned around by evening and fled the battle. And at one point, one American sailor, watching the Japanese battleships flee the battlefield was screaming out, wait, they're getting away. But the Johnston that fought heroically, in fact, the first Medal of Honor awarded to a Native American in the US Navy was the captain of that vessel, and he did not survive the battle. And the destroyer escort, Samuel B. Roberts, they called it the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship. It went even deeper in the Philippine Trench than the Johnston did. And I was very happy to be the first person to locate the majority of those wrecks.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. What are the depth of those?

[Victor Viscovo]

6,500, 6,800 meters. That's 50% deeper than Titanic. The wrecks were a tenth the size of the Titanic. It was really hard to find them. But we had a methodology, we had a great team, and we alternated the pilot duties. And I was fortunate. I was able to be the pilot when we found the two wrecks. And it's very eerie. In fact, on the Samuel B. Roberts, I remember getting to the wreck, we were so excited. We confirmed the whole number. And I'm sweeping along the side of the wreck to get a good photo and video record of it. And I was probably maybe just a little bit further away from the wreck than you and I are right now. And right in front of my portal, I saw a depth charge in Iraq. And it was probably live. You know, it went down fighting. So I really slowly backed up the sub at that point and said, we have to be really careful here because I asked an explosive ordnance disposal expert a while later said, could that still go off? He said, at that depth, after that amount of time, who knows? And that would have been a bad day.

[Sean Ryan]

Did you find anything interesting down there?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, the cool thing about the wrecks at that depth, there's virtually no oxygen, so they're pristine. They're not like Titanic that has stuff growing all over it. So when you're looking, yeah, so when you're looking at the wrecks, the holes, you can see the burn marks on the paint from the battles. We could actually reconstruct parts of the battle from the shell holes after we took apart the video and basically built virtual reality replicas of the wrecks. In fact, we now know because of the dive we did, we're pretty sure that the Johnston was hit by a shell from the largest battleship ever built, the Yamato. We could tell by the shell size because it was the biggest gun ever put on a ship. And so you're able to reconstruct history a little bit better by going down there and looking at the wrecks. Steel doesn't lie, as we say.

[Sean Ryan]

And so the visibility down there is.

[Victor Viscovo]

Just, it's better than it is Titanic because it's so clear. So we could see more like 40 or 50 meters down there.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting. And it's just, it's just preserved. Like it just sank yesterday out of a museum.

[Victor Viscovo]

Like on the Johnston, the guns are still trained to starboard because it was still firing, firing when it went down. And there were some emotional moments too because I know the history of the ships and what happened. Like there was this one gun on the Samuel B. Roberts where when they abandoned ship, there was this very popular gunner's mate who manned a 5 inch gun on the rear and it took a direct hit and they went to go get him to abandon the ship. And this, this guy, this petty officer, he had his whole left side was blown open and when they found him, he was still trying to ram the last shell into the five inch gun. And they just, you know, they had to let him be. That's how he died. And I was right there looking at where this, where a Petty Officer Carr, where he perished and it just still gives me chills. I mean, what those men went through on that day and who does that? I mean, charging battleships in a destroyer escort with a couple of torpedoes thinking, you know, at least we can slow them down. Just amazing.

[Sean Ryan]

It is, isn't it?

[Victor Viscovo]

Very proud to have served in the Navy.

[Sean Ryan]

And you've Been to the deepest part of all five oceans?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yep.

[Sean Ryan]

Tell me about that.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. Well, Richard Branson had the idea back in the early 2000s. He called it the Five Dives Project. But he chose some technology to try and dive to the bottom that used carbon fiber, a different submarine design, submersible design, and it didn't work. But I thought, we have the technology to be able to do that. Maybe if it was done differently, you could do it. And then I said the five most dangerous words in the English language. How hard could it be? And so I started a project to figure out how much money it would take, what experts I would need. And it was expensive, but possible. And I could not believe in the year 2015 when I started researching this, that that human beings had not been to the bottom of four of our world's oceans. It's about time. I come from Texas and we don't say, oh, government should do it or some other guy should do it. We're like, hey, I'll do it. Why not? I can do it. And it was a interesting adventure too. Had a good technical aspect, a logistical aspect. I like problem solving and I'm a pilot and I said, if I build it, I'm going to pilot it. So it was risky in terms of just being able to get it done. We had no idea if it was going to work. But we put together the whole project and I was able to build like an ocean's eleven type of team to build this up, build the logistics, build the surface vessel to support it, the hydrographers to map the ocean floor. All these pieces had to come together and they did. I mean, what an adventure. It was great and we did a lot of amazing science and I think we sparked at least a little bit more interest in the deep ocean, where there's now more people investing money, governments and individuals to dive in the deep ocean and investigate it, like the people that bought my system. So sometimes exploration, even if it looks like it's kind of a one off thing or a look at me kind of thing, I think it can actually have real contributions to science and technology.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I mean, it sounds like it. You've discovered all kinds of new species down there, correct?

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, every dive we went on, we typically found a new species, which the scientists later said, well, it'd be surprising if we didn't because these are isolated parts of the ocean floor that have had tens of millions of years of evolution and no one has ever been there. So, yeah, you're going to find some different species. So why Wouldn't you? But that was pretty cool.

[Sean Ryan]

What kind of species did you find?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, the deeper you go, the smaller they get. So, you know, the scientists, you know, they love their microbes, they love doing DNA analysis and all that. But there are small amphipods. They're like miniature shrimp. They're little worms. They're not something that people are going to go, ooh, ah, like looking at, you know, a lion on the Serengeti. But from a biological standpoint, they can be quite distinctive and very unique. These are creatures that live in conditions of 8 tons per square inch on every surface of their body. That's almost. That's like four automobiles on your fingertip. That's where they live in freezing cold water and they never see sunlight. We saw colonies of bacteria on the bottom of the rock of the bottom of the ocean, on the rocks that never see sunlight. And yet they're alive. Well, how can that be? There's something called chemosynthesis, where these are colonies of life that are drawing energy from methane seeping from the rocks, living off the chemical reactions in the minerals of the rocks. This is a different form of life than what we have on the surface of the Earth. In fact, if we find life outside of Earth in our solar system, on Ganymede or Europa or these other moons that may have life, it'll probably look more similar to what we saw in the deep ocean trenches than what we see in the, you know, the brilliantly lit, shallow waters of the ocean or the. On land. So the scientists have been really excited about that.

[Sean Ryan]

Now, I mean, how does the. How do these organisms or this. These undiscovered species, I mean.

[Victor Viscovo]

How are.

[Sean Ryan]

They able to withhold 8. 8 tons per. Did you say 8 tons per square.

[Victor Viscovo]

8 tons per square inch at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. It's an incredibly harsh environment, one of the harshest on the planet, if not the harshest. That's why, you know, I had 90 millimeters of titanium protecting me in my sphere. And they are designed that way. It's evolution. And I'm sure they. The one time in their life they ever saw light was when my submarine came to visit them. I'm sure they would look at me and going, how does that thing survive? You know, what an odd alien that is? It's all frame of reference.

[Sean Ryan]

Have they done any. Did you collect specimens?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, absolutely. I had robots that went down with me. We called them landers. They didn't move, but they would come down with me and land on the bottom. I had three of Them, they would act as navigation beacons for me as the submersible pilot. So I'd kind of know where I am. But they could also take film for long periods of time, and they studied everything that came up to feed on the dead fish that we put out for them. And we also had traps where the animals that could move, you know, like a mousetrap, we would have them come into these cylinders and we would capture them and then bring them all the way up. It was tricky because these creatures, as they get less and less pressure on their bodies, they start to disintegrate, kind of melt. So one of the procedures that we had to do was as soon as the landers came up onto the surface, it was a very rapid action drill to get the samples off the landers and into a freezer to freeze them so we could see what they mostly look like in their ambient environment. But then we could compare what we brought up to the film and we could see what they basically had. But really, the key is getting their DNA and looking at their DNA. I mean, for example, the scientists were fascinated to see is the DNA from all these different trenches all over the world. Is it the same or is it different? Because there are significant implications to both scenarios. And we didn't know until we went and actually did it. And it turns out a lot of it is different. But remarkably, there are trenches that are separated by thousands and thousands of miles that are basically the same creature. And yet how were these trenches ever connected? How did they migrate? It's a mystery. We don't know. We found one creature in the Java Trench off of Indonesia. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen underwater. It was about at 6,000 meters. And just recently, they saw something that looked exactly like it under Antarctica.

[Sean Ryan]

No kidding. What did it look like?

[Victor Viscovo]

It looks like a jellyfish with a cable coming out the back end of it. It was bizarre. It's called the stalkdesidian. It more or less looks like a jellyfish, but it didn't move like a jellyfish. It looked like a balloon, sort of, but it was moving, and it came right up to the lander, did a right turn and crossed it. And it was just bizarre.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you see any, like, bioluminescence?

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, yeah, we saw bioluminescence all the time. In fact, it's the most common form of communication on planet Earth.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you mean by that?

[Victor Viscovo]

There are more organisms in the ocean than on land, and the primary form of communication for animals in the sea is light.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Victor Viscovo]

I did not know that it's not whales talking to each other with sonar, although they do that. But most life are small creatures and they're bioluminescent. So at about 2 to 3,000 meters, when you start getting really dark. But before you get into like ultimate dark, below 6,000 meters, there's no photons. There is. I mean, there's like no light. It's not possible to see light below 6,000 meters because all the photons are absorbed. Now we bring lights with us on the submarine, but if you turn all the lights off on the submarine and you look out of the portal, you're seeing the blackest black that your mind can register. It was actually quite eerie. You know, remember Nietzsche? You know, be careful when you look into the abyss, it's looking back into you too. But for bioluminescence, at about 2 or 3,000 meters, I would turn all the lights off and then I would turn all of them on at once and then turn them off again like I was blinking. And sure enough, not all the time, but often I'd start seeing flashes of light all throughout the ocean, like lightning away from the submarine, like they're talking back. It was like I was screaming in the ocean, hey. And they're all going, what? I have no idea what we were saying to each other.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Victor Viscovo]

It was pretty special. Wow.

[Sean Ryan]

That's incredible.

[Victor Viscovo]

I mean, it's a whole different world.

[Sean Ryan]

Did I hear something about the. I mean, are there any. They have a skeletal structure, any of.

[Victor Viscovo]

These Below a certain level, they can't. I can't remember the exact depth, but we found the deepest fish ever recorded in one of the Japanese trenches in 2022. Our expedition did, with the Japanese, who are great to work with, by the way. I can't exactly recall the exact depth of that fish, but it was predicted because after a certain pressure, vertebra can't form. And without a vertebra, you can't have a fish.

[Sean Ryan]

What did that fish look like?

[Victor Viscovo]

It looks. It's very gelatinous. It's one of my favorite fishes because it kind of has an embedded grin on. It just looks that way and it just does its thing. It swims at the bottom of the ocean and it feeds off whatever drops from above. And it's kind of ghostly white, kind of translucent, but it looks like a pretty simple, happy fish.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm super excited to announce a project that I've been working on. I partnered with Ironclad for their newest original series, Target Intelligence Psyop. It's an eight part audio experience where we find out who is really pulling the strings. Enjoy this trailer and stay tuned to the end of the show to listen to the prologue.

[Victor Viscovo]

Buy it today.

[Sean Ryan]

It's psyopshow.com link is in the show. Notes. The stakes have never been higher. Do you feel it that something's off? What if none of this is real? For decades, wars have been fought in silence. No bullets, no bombs, just influence. They're called psychological operations. Psyops, what if it's all designed for you? Find out who's really pulling the strings. I'm Sean Ryan and this is Target Intelligence Psyop, an ironclad original. In this eight part audio experience, we uncover the ghosts in the machine. Buy it [e-mail]. what was the specific motivation for going to these depths in these. In these different parts of the ocean? I mean, was it because nobody had been there ever?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What was that like to.

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, it was a combination. No one had ever been there. And there's, you know, deep explorer gene. I guess you want to go someplace no one else has ever been before. But also the technical challenge. Only twice before our expedition had anyone ever been to the bottom of the ocean. In 1960 with Captain Don Walsh of the US Navy and Jacques Picard, the Swiss engineer. They went down together in 1960 and they never did it again. James Cameron, the film director, he went down in his submersible, the Deep sea Challenger, in 2012, first solo dive to the bottom of the ocean. Great respect to him, but he never dove again in that trench. And then we came along and we did five dives to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 10 days. And then we did the rest of the oceans and then we went back. And more than 20 people have been to the bottom of the ocean in the vessel that we built. And Triton submarines who designed and built it were extraordinary. And so we built a tool that allowed for the first time to go anywhere on the seafloor repeatedly and safely that had not existed before. So we made it look easy. That's the real trick, right? You want to do something where you make something extraordinary look easy. Man.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, I've been to places in the world where I thought, I'm probably the only American that's ever been here. And that is a weird feeling. But to be somewhere at the bottom of the ocean where you are the only human being that's ever been there. I mean, I can't imagine what that feels like.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. And it's a little addictive. You know, when I did one Trench. I wanted to do another one and then another one. I want to do all of them now and I haven't. And that's why I'm taking a little bit of a break, working on some other venture investments. I'm working very much on building what I hope is the most advanced and efficient deep ocean mapping vessel ever constructed. Most people don't understand that 75% of the ocean is still completely and utterly unmapped and unexplored. Given that the ocean is 70% of our planet, half of planet Earth is still completely unexplored. It's all underwater. And part of that problem is it's really expensive to map the seafloor because you can only do it with a very powerful sonar. So in the last couple of years I've been designing and developing a ship that will be semi autonomous, a crew of one or two, highly automated, but with a really powerful sonar. And hopefully in the next two years I'll have it built and I'm just going to put it out in the ocean. Mapping the seafloor and then donating the maps to the open source community because it needs to be done. It's incredible.

[Sean Ryan]

That's incredible.

[Victor Viscovo]

What else am I going to do with you?

[Sean Ryan]

Who knows? The sky's the limit.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. So I'm very dedicated to that ocean mapping vessel and eventually I want to design a next generation submersible that's even better than the one that I dove in in 2018-2022 that would incorporate all the advances that we've made since then. But that's a very expensive and very difficult endeavor as I know. And I want to do it right.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. You know, right before we started the interview, I, we, we showed you this little YouTube video that looked like. It looked like, how do I say this? It looked like a, a body of water inside a body of water. And there was this little snake or this worm coming in and out of it. What, what was that? And have you ever seen anything like that before?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, they're called underwater lakes, or as we saw them in the Red Sea on one of my dives, they were brine lakes. There are certain situations in the ocean where you can end up with water areas that are of significantly different densities. So they form pools or lakes underwater. And they look that way because they're of different density in the Red Sea. It's an enclosed sea, so you get a lot of evaporation of water, but the salt stays behind and then the salt falls to the bottom. So at the bottom of The Red sea, you know, 5,000 plus meters. You end up with these, like the Dead Sea, but underwater. So you have these lakes of heavily saline or salty water that looks different than the water above it. And we dove in the submersible, myself and a scientist, we went down, and it was like there was a shoreline different color. It was like tan and browns. You could even see waves of the brine lake lapping up against this shore, but were 5,000 meters underwater, and no one had ever gone through into the lake because the only vehicles that ever been that deep in that area were robots. And they didn't want to lose the robots because there's a lot of heat in that salt. The heat collects at the bottom of the ocean, and so they don't want to lose it. So I figured, hey, what the hell? I'm under positive control. Let's go diving. And the scientist agreed with me, Dr. Jameson, who's from Scotland, so he's a good risk taker. So we hovered over this brine lake that looked like a film of milk. And the first time I tried to go through the barrier, I did it so slowly, the submarine bounced off of it, which is kind of unnerving. It bounced because the density of the salt was so high, it acted almost like rubber. And, you know, I wasn't going to let it defeat me. So we're gonna. Yeah, yeah. I got more power. So I put the sub up a couple of meters higher, built up some speed, and went full power. And we penetrated through the brine. And it was milky, milky white for about a meter or 2. 2. And then it was crystal clear. But all my temperature gauges just went red line.

[Sean Ryan]

How hot was it?

[Victor Viscovo]

You could feel it in the sub? We don't know, because it was easily in excess of 120, 130, maybe higher degrees Fahrenheit. You could feel it in the sub. Almost immediately. It was getting warmer in the sub because also we were in a metal sphere. And so the heat conducted pretty quickly through the titanium. And after not too long, maybe not even 15 or 20 seconds, scientists and I looked at each other saying, I think we should go back up. Yeah. So I, you know, I was worried my thrusters were gonna not work, and. But we went full power and we penetrated back through. And, yeah, when we got back to the surface, you know, half my electronics were fried from the heat. It was worth it.

[Sean Ryan]

That's awesome.

[Victor Viscovo]

It was pretty.

[Sean Ryan]

It's like going into a black hole.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Nobody knows what the hell's.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. We didn't Know what was going to be on the other side. I personally thought it was going to just be the same Milky Way, that we weren't going to see a darn thing. But that's what surprised me was that it was actually consistent and therefore optically transparent. Who knew? That's why you explore. You don't know what you're going to find. People keep asking me all the time, you know, what do you hope to find on the sea floor? Why do you explore so much? What are you looking for? I said, I don't know. That's the joy of it. I have no idea what we're going to find, but I know it'll be new. And even if it's boring, we will have discovered something.

[Sean Ryan]

Also, earlier you had, you had spoken about bringing, I believe it was a woman who had studied underwater volcanoes for years but had never seen one. You brought him, Brought her down to one.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. That was one of the really nice benefits of having my own system. I wasn't beholden to any government, no institution. People couldn't tell me what to do. I could decide, I want to go dive that trench or I want to go dive that area and just go do it. It. That's why I don't really have any real sponsors except for my favorite watch brand, Omega. And I do that because I like them, but I don't have any other sponsors because once you take money from people, they can tell you what to do. I don't like being told what to do. And that allowed me to invite scientists who had unique specialties, who had never been in a deep diving submersible for the first and probably only time in their life to investigate areas that they had spent their whole lives researching. And that was pretty cool. Like, I took a local Hawaiian PhD in marine biology. We went down to the very bottom of Mauna Kea, which technically is the tallest mountain in the world. It's just that half of it is underwater. We got in The Submersible and Dr. Cliff Kapono and I of Hawaii, we went down to the base of Mauna Kea in the ocean. We floated to the top. We then kayaked 21 miles to shore. Yeah, did some seal stuff, biked and then hiked up Mauna Kea. So it was the first time anyone had ever done the full distance of Mauna Kea. But I got to do it with a local from Hawaii who was a marine biologist who was describing what it was like as a scientist to do that experience. And yeah, it was a bit of a Stunt. And it was, I'm a mountaineer and I like doing it. But there are also other looks. People always complain that scientific activities don't get enough money. They don't get enough research money from the government, they don't get enough support. Well, part of it is marketing and you need to make things interesting to the layperson or even exciting. For heaven forbid I go back to the golden age of exploration with Amundsen and Scott. The race for the polls that captured the imagination of all the people all over the world. And they were excited about science and they funded it. And that's what a lot of us are trying to do at the Explorers Club and people like me. We're trying to make people excited about exploration and investing their time and their attention to it in an attention deprived world.

[Sean Ryan]

Any aspirations to find Atlantis?

[Victor Viscovo]

Of course, yeah. Atlantis is a tricky subject in marine research. A lot of people poo poo the idea. They think it was just an invention. Maybe it was part of Spain, maybe it was something else. I do get approached by people that say, no, I'm pretty sure I know where it is. Can you get me down there? Well, I can't anymore because I sold my system. But I could have capabilities in the next few years to do research. But then if you do find something, are you sure? What is Atlantis?

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think?

[Victor Viscovo]

I personally think Atlantis was a collection of small towns and cities in the west, maybe in Spain, maybe even in the English Isles. I don't think there was a continent in the middle of the Atlantic that had this advanced civilization partially taught by aliens. No, I don't go that far. I've seen enough history and been part of enough actual historical events to see how things can get distorted really quickly, really easily. So people tell tall tales. And I think that, yeah, there were some people out west from Greece that maybe had some cool technology and it became the legend of Atlantis. And then maybe one day there was a natural disaster, a tornado combined with a flood, something awful that was very local. But of course that became a big story. So. You know what I've learned about history is the old saying, history is a pack of lies that we all agree on. It's never 100% accurate.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm taking that quote. I love that quote.

[Victor Viscovo]

I'm paraphrasing someone more than you said.

[Sean Ryan]

History is a pack of a lot.

[Victor Viscovo]

History is a pack of lies mutually agreed upon.

[Sean Ryan]

I love that quote.

[Victor Viscovo]

It's, it's very accurate. From my direct experience, even four people at the exact same place at the Same time, witnessing the exact same event. You will get four different stories. Ask any cop. History's even worse.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, so if somebody came to you and said, I know where Atlantis is and you still have the submersible.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, I would have done that.

[Sean Ryan]

You would have done it?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. In fact, you had a guest on your show, Rear Admiral Gallaudet, who asked me to take a look at some suspicious places underwater that may have been associated with unidentified aerial phenomenon. And I obliged him. I sent my landers down and we took pictures and we took sonar, and there was nothing there. Some unusual rocks, but no secret doors.

[Sean Ryan]

Why did he think that those.

[Victor Viscovo]

They did look unusual on sonar, there's no question. And there were reports of unusual aerial phenomenon. I treat it like I'm a scientist. I never say never. I'll believe anything until proven otherwise. So if someone says, hey, Victor, you want to go look at this place because it looks interesting, I'm like, okay, sure. I don't know what I'm going to find. I try to do it with an open mind, but we didn't find anything. Or a couple.

[Sean Ryan]

Was it. Was it the aerial. Was it the Nimitz that documented that.

[Victor Viscovo]

Aerial, where we dove was actually off west of Los Angeles.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Victor Viscovo]

But I also took a look at something west of Mexico on the way up. Neither did we find anything unusual. And I personally have never had any UAP encounters of any kind.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Victor Viscovo]

I'm always hoping for. I'm hoping, you know, to go down even deeper. What's kind of funny is in the James Cameron movie the Abyss, you know, they go down very deep and they find the big spaceship. Right. Well, I went down even deeper than that. I still didn't find a space that was about 8,9000 meters in the Cayman Trench. We went down to the Marianas. And if you were ever going to hide a spaceship, you know, that's where you would hide it. Right. But so far, nothing.

[Sean Ryan]

No spaceships under there yet.

[Victor Viscovo]

No, not yet.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Well, let's talk about the grand slam.

[Victor Viscovo]

The grand slam? Yeah. Physical beat down. That was most dangerous thing I've ever done is high altitude mountaineering.

[Sean Ryan]

You think that's more dangerous? Really?

[Victor Viscovo]

No question. Easily. I've almost died a couple of times. Yeah, it's. It is very dangerous because you're dealing with Mother Nature in a very harsh place. It's like you're in mortal combat when you get above, you know, 8,000 meters. They don't call it the death zone to be melodramatic. It's very Scary up there, you're slowly dying and you get in trouble. No one's really going to help you out that easily. So it's very dangerous. And just one wrong decision in one moment of absentmindedness and you're done. So, yeah, it's dangerous.

[Sean Ryan]

Could you explain what the Grand Slam is for? The.

[Victor Viscovo]

The Grand Slam is summiting the highest mountain on all seven continents and skiing at least 100 km to the north and South Pole. Yeah, it took me about 20 years. I didn't intend on doing it. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to go do this thing. I just loved climbing and I kept climbing higher and higher and eventually I was able to climb Everest. And I said, well, that was pretty cool. Wow, the poles sound pretty interesting. And by the way, the North Pole is a lot harder than the South Pole.

[Sean Ryan]

Why is that? Why is that?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, it moves. You're on ice floes. So on one day of our expedition to ski to the North Pole, we woke up, we skied like 12 hours that day. We were exhausted, and it was negative 40. It's just hellish up there, you know, polar bears are running around.

[Sean Ryan]

Who's we?

[Victor Viscovo]

Myself and two other people, including the maybe the world's best Arctic explorer, Eric Larson, he was our guide, and one other individual. And the three of us with one tent pulling all of our supplies over ice floes in the ice. It was. It was kind of epic. And, yeah, we. We plowed forward all day for like 12 hours, went to sleep, woke up right back the same place where we started because we had drifted while we slept. Now, sometimes it worked in our favor, but it was very frustrating. But the most dangerous thing about the North Pole is you're on ice. And with climate change a little bit, the ice is getting thinner. If you go in the water and it's ambient temperature negative 30, negative 40, it's a life or death situation. You need to get that person out immediately, get their clothes off, put them in warm clothes, or they will get hypothermia and die really quickly. So we had a whole drill for that. It was a dangerous place. South Pole, you're on a high plane, it's land. You just get on a vector and you just keep skiing until you get to the South Pole. Also very cold, very windy, but it's doable.

[Sean Ryan]

How long did it take you to accomplish that?

[Victor Viscovo]

Each one was about six days. They, they literally drop you off in a plane 100 kilometers from each objective. And when that plane leaves, I swear to God, you just look at your friends and yourself and go like, what the hell did I just get into?

[Sean Ryan]

What was the hardest summit?

[Victor Viscovo]

Everest.

[Sean Ryan]

Everest, yeah.

[Victor Viscovo]

And not because the lines, although they are for most people. We had a unique situation where when I went up on my second try, on the first try, I got frostbite at Camp 2 halfway up and I had to come down. So I went back again two years later. And on that trip a storm started when we were at Camp 4, when we were about to launch for the summit. And it was not good. It was so not good that every team except one other chose not to go up that night. But we had a really strong team and we thought, nah, we could, we could do it and there'll be no lines. So we traded one risk for another. It was very cold, very windy, stormy. But we didn't have anyone in front of us. Well, we only had one group and we were able to keep moving and we were able to summit. But when we got to the summit, we could only see about 100, 200 meters, but we definitely were on the summit. And then we. And then very rapidly, after 15 minutes on the summit, we came down because it was very dangerous. But it's just a physical and mental beat down. Climbing Eveverest, it takes two months.

[Sean Ryan]

It takes two months.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. That's the whole evolution because you climb up to get acclimatized. You come down, you climb up even further and you come down again. And the whole time you're sick, you're losing weight, you can't eat enough to keep your body weight up. You're just burning so many calories and your body can't digest food. So it's a beat down.

[Sean Ryan]

What is the altitude at that summit?

[Victor Viscovo]

29,028Ft, plus or minus. Yeah, it's really high. Above 8,000 meters, you are slowly dying. Like if you're on summit day and you get above 8,000 meters just outside of Camp 4, if you stop to rest, you're only dying more slowly. You have to get back down. And that's why if you run out of oxygen and you've been on oxygen, you're done. Because your body starts getting used to it. And people have a misconception that if you're on oxygen, oh, it's like normal, like you're at sea level. Not at all. It just takes the edge off of, lowers the feeling of altitude. By 3 or 4,000ft, it gives you enough oxygen to keep yourself warm. It's not like Popeye opening a can of spinach and making you strong. It keeps you alive. And yes, people have summited Everest for that oxygen. But it's very rare and very dangerous. So it's a, it's a serious place and people I think sometimes give it too much. Oh, it's a, it's a walk up. Look at the lines. You just have to pay a lot of money and go up. Yeah. Let's hear someone who's actually done it say that. They don't. It's tough.

[Sean Ryan]

Any good stories?

[Victor Viscovo]

You know there are dead bodies up there and you're just too exhausted to.

[Sean Ryan]

Do any see them.

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh hell yeah. It's a narrow trail and you know, some are more covered than others, but people go, well, how can you leave them up there? People just don't get a sense of what it's like on summit day on Everest. You are hypoxic. It's like you're drunk. You're bound up in all this material to keep you warm. You can't hear because the wind is so loud you can't even recognize your own team members. Because we all look alike in all of our gear, it's hard to even figure out what the hell is going on. Much less is that person next to me dying or are they just taking a break? You don't know. You don't care. You're just trying to stay alive and you know, especially in bad weather. So it's a serious place, man.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll bet, I'll bet. Man, that's. It's just, it's just wild how many places you've been.

[Victor Viscovo]

And although the most dangerous mountain I climbed was Karsten's pyramid in Papua New Guinea. Yeah. Because that is the highest mountain on a non continent. It's on the island of Punjak Jaya in Indonesia. And that one's really dangerous because it is remote as hell. We're talking primordial forest. There is no one there except a bunch of tribes literally with bows and arrows and spears. It was about a six day trek from a mountain airstrip to get to the mountain and we were guarded by tribesmen and we had a couple of tough interactions with other tribes as well. There's. That's a whole separate story. And then when we got there, the, the mountain partially had to be free climbed without ropes, which you don't do on Everest. And there we, if you got hurt there, there's no medical attention. It's all self rescue. And there was one point where you actually have to do what's called the Tyrolean traverse where there's a steel cable between two pinnacles and you actually have to clip into the cable and then pull yourself over a chasm to get to where the summit is and then do it again on the way back. Yeah, that was. Yeah, you start questioning life choices at that point.

[Sean Ryan]

Sometimes, I guess heights don't bother you, huh?

[Victor Viscovo]

No, I don't. Claustrophobia, heights, they just don't. None of it, it just. I don't know why they just don't.

[Sean Ryan]

What about the tribes? What was, what was that conversation?

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, they've been fighting each other, you know, however long they've been there. And you know, bows and arrows aren't cute for them. They are actual weapons of war and they do, you know, little stage fights every now and then, but they're serious people. And you know, kids I ran into there, some of them had never seen Caucasian before. You know, they did the typical to come up and like trying to, you know, feel what it's like or they just get mesmerized by my eyes and my hair. They'd never seen it. But there were a couple of interactions where we would go into a town in so called enemy territory and we would thought we had arranged safe passage with our guides. And there was one very tense moment where they were going to try and extract value from us, money or whatever we were carrying. And we were in the middle, the Westerners. And then our tribe was in a circle around us and then there was another circle around them and kind of a Mexican standoff. And it was very, very tense and we couldn't understand a word they were saying. But they were yelling a lot, which is never a good sign. I mean, I got my knife ready to go. No, I wasn't going to go down quietly. And eventually they worked it out. And very tensely we kind of got up and slowly got through, went on our way to the mountain Fat happened right on.

[Sean Ryan]

And then you went to space?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah, if I've compared these things a lot, going to the bottom of the ocean is like going into a pyramid. It feels very ancient, very dark. You know, you get this immense sense of time. Climbing Everest is like mortal combat. Going into the octagon and just getting the hell beat out of you and still trying to survive. Going into space is like going to a Metallica rock concert. It is just awesome. You're with your friends, you're, you know, you're going up vertically at Mach 3 on a ballistic trajectory. You know, it happens in like three minutes. You're in space, you know, the chime goes off, you unbuckle and you float out of your chair, you have these huge windows and you're seeing the Earth from space. There's no kidding. You are in space. You are looking down on the Earth. It is a white sun on a black background. No atmospheric distortion to make it yellow. You see the very thin veneer of the atmosphere. And there's something that astronauts coined in the Apollo program called the overview effect. That when you get to space and you see the Earth from space, it can change you psychologically. I believe that is true. I think it affects different people to a greater or lesser degree. But yes, you look down on the Earth, you don't see boundaries. It is, it's not just beautiful, it is drop dead gorgeous. The Earth from space. And I swear, you, you want to come back and be better and do better. That's why I think I'm a huge proponent of getting people into space. Because I don't think any. Anyone goes into space and comes back worse.

[Sean Ryan]

That's amazing.

[Victor Viscovo]

You need to go.

[Sean Ryan]

I would love to go. I don't really know anybody that can get me there, but I'll try and.

[Victor Viscovo]

Work with you on that.

[Sean Ryan]

I would love to go.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. They need more good storytellers and people that can communicate the experience.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, what, what is it, what is it like to see that?

[Victor Viscovo]

It is difficult to put into words because the colors are so vivid. And instead of being able to see, even like in a plane, I fly, you know, hundreds of miles, you're seeing thousands of miles. It's almost like a God's eye view of the world. And the curvature is perfect. Everything just feels perfect. The sun is white. A perfect yellow ball of fire in a completely black space. The perfect curve of the Earth, the brilliant blue of the atmosphere, the tans and slight greens of the Earth. And you're floating. I mean, that just adds to the experience. And you're with your friends and everyone's laughing, everyone's having fun. And yes, okay, I know for people out there, oh, this is a bunch of rich people spending money like Katy Perry going up and all this. I get that. But please humor me a little bit that in the early days of flight, people would pay a decent amount of money to go up in a thing called an airplane. Daredevils, right? The more that was done, the more common it became by going up on Blue origin or on SpaceX or these other spacecraft. The more we do it, the more accessible it will become for everyone else. And I believe we can do a lot of good in space. We can do manufacturing in space. We could hopefully mine asteroids one day. A lot of benefits will come from accessing space in a more affordable, reliable and safer way than we have historically. And I feel that by having, yes, people, good means going up on rides. Fine. I don't think it's bad. And, oh, you should be spending the money doing other things. Well, if you use that excuse, you would never do anything other than just providing charitable resources for those that really need it. We wouldn't be advancing ourselves as a species. And I firmly believe that technological developments have solved more misery, solved more problems in human history than anything else we've ever done. And space exploration, along with ocean exploration, along with venture capital, those are the mechanisms to improve us as a species, which allows 8 billion people to live on this planet and raises hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It's technology.

[Sean Ryan]

When you get up there and you're looking at the. At the Earth, I mean, do you have any thoughts about, you know, what happens when we die? What is this all about?

[Victor Viscovo]

Now, I've been asked, and I'm a Zen Buddhist by practice. I was raised Episcopalian. I think that there's great value in all religions because I think that they encourage us to be better than ourselves naturally would be. And I believe that there are very common strains among all the world's great religions. Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, all of them. I think they're all just different expressions and different cultural historical norms that sing to different personalities and heritages. So I don't think it's any great shock that most people in Western Europe and the United States are Christian. That's our heritage. That's where we come from. But I've been in places like Papua New guinea where they have never been really exposed to it. So they have their own deities, their own religion. That doesn't mean make them bad people. In fact, they can be very wonderful people. So for me, I have a sense of spirituality through experiencing the world as it is. I do not know what happens after we die.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think about it?

[Victor Viscovo]

Not really.

[Sean Ryan]

Really, you don't think about that?

[Victor Viscovo]

No, because I can't know it. And my father was Episcopalian, he was very devout and he really liked to believe in an afterlife, that if you're a good person, you go there, which is great. And I hope that he fulfilled that dream. I just don't know. And if I can't know something, I'm such a rational person. Brian Gumbel interviewed me and he called me a Vulcan. If I can't know something, I don't worry about comes down to faith. And you either have faith or you don't have faith, or you don't even ask the question. And I'm kind of in that realm where I appreciate every day as much as I can. I experience all that I can. I try and be a good person. I try and advance technology as best I can to help other people. But what happens after we die? I'll find out.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you. I mean, did you say Buddhist?

[Victor Viscovo]

I'm a Zen Buddhist.

[Sean Ryan]

What is that?

[Victor Viscovo]

Zen Buddhism is based on the premise that meditation is a doorway, that everything is connected, and that through direct experience, we can have commonality with each other, with the world, with the universe. And so it does have many common strains. There are Zen Buddhists who are also Christians, that they can kind of meld the two philosophies. And it also tries to emphasize that human language is a barrier to truly understanding the world as it really is. You have to have it through direct experience. Hence all the jokes about Zen Buddhism and the riddles that they tell each other. They're actually trying to do that to show that human language has great limitations. To explain the nature of the universe, the nature of the human condition and spirituality, you have to do it more directly. Very difficult to explain Zen Buddhism in a sentence or two, but that's part of it. It just fits my personality.

[Sean Ryan]

But when you talk about everything, I'm just curious. Have you ever done psychedelics?

[Victor Viscovo]

No, no, I'm a pilot.

[Sean Ryan]

There's. I mean, there's a. A. A overwhelming feeling that everything's connected on those.

[Victor Viscovo]

Of course we are. Well, I certainly believe that. And you experience that when you're in the high mountains, wearing the deep oceans, when you're in space. I've had the privilege where I've been able to experience things that any practitioners in Buddhism would have loved to have done. It makes it easier. When you are in a place of awe, like a Gothic cathedral, it's easier to get in touch with one's spirituality. But the best Gothic cathedral I've ever seen in my life are the Himalayas.

[Sean Ryan]

Very cool. What are some other things that you've done in your explorations that maybe most people don't know about?

[Victor Viscovo]

Oh, goodness gracious. It's a difficult question. We've talked about a lot of them. Oceans, space. Flying, I think, has been one of the things that's a much more subtle thing. I think learning how to fly was one of the transformational experiences in my life because it teaches you to be very much in connection with the environment. It teaches you about Mechanics. It teaches you about self discipline. You know, don't fly on days where you're not ready to fly. You can get killed. You can kill other people. And it set me up for success because that's how I approach so many different things is like a good pilot, you know, is my craft ready? Am I ready? What's my plan of action? What's my way out if things go sideways? And being a good pilot, you know, taught me a lot of great lessons about how just to be a good person and be an effective person. And then the military just exacerbated that. The military taught me a lot of great lessons, too. They taught me a lot about how to manage people. Because in the military, you're kind of. You got to deal with who you get. You don't get to pick a lot of the people that you work with. Maybe not in the seals. Maybe you do, but in the rest of the Navy, you are. You know, you play the hand you're dealt and. Same there. Yeah. But you get taught a lot of how to motivate A players, B players, and not so great players and hopefully meld them into a team that's effective. That was a very difficult lesson, but the Navy did a good job of trying to teach me some of that.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you. I mean, you sold the. You sold the submersible and the ship.

[Victor Viscovo]

And the ship, and the whole team went and worked with them. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And I mean, so sounds like you're concentrating on venture capital right now.

[Victor Viscovo]

Venture capital. So, yeah, a lot of attention on some of the technological advances that I want to push there, as well as this ocean mapping vessel. That will be a big deal. This single ship should be able to map as much of the seafloor as the rest of the world's combined fleet, you know? Well, maybe not quite that much. Maybe 70%. Yeah. Because that's all it does. No other ship has ever been designed that does just one thing like this, which is to map the ocean. The ship designer said, we've never been asked to build anything like this, so hopefully it'll be transformational. It would still take a single vessel 80 years to map the ocean. So I'm hoping that this will encourage people to buy one or two, and then we can do it faster. But I think it's something we need to map our own planet, for God's sake.

[Sean Ryan]

100% agree with that. I mean, when. When will that be operational?

[Victor Viscovo]

Hopefully in two years to figure out where to get it built.

[Sean Ryan]

Right now, where are you going to start?

[Victor Viscovo]

And Unfortunately, I'd love to build in the United States, but it's too expensive by a dramatic amount.

[Sean Ryan]

Who will build it?

[Victor Viscovo]

I am not sure yet. I'm taking bids from all over the world.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Victor Viscovo]

I guarantee you one thing, it will not be built in China.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you. I was hoping you would say that.

[Victor Viscovo]

Where would you start?

[Sean Ryan]

I mean.

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, it's interesting you say that.

[Sean Ryan]

75% of the ocean that hasn't been mapped yet. I mean, where do you want to start?

[Victor Viscovo]

The places I haven't dived yet. So part of the issue in diving to the bottom of all five oceans, we didn't know where the bottom of four of the oceans were, so we actually had to put the biggest sonar ever put on a civilian vessel on my ship, and we had to map the areas first because we didn't know where to dive. And so of the trenches I have not been in, I'd probably use as the shakedown cruise, going to all the trenches I haven't been to and mapping them thoroughly so that when I eventually get another submersible, I can know where to go.

[Sean Ryan]

Is there anyone specifically that you want to hit?

[Victor Viscovo]

Yes, but I'm not going to talk about it.

[Sean Ryan]

Can you talk about what?

[Victor Viscovo]

Because the number one problem with ocean research, you're not going to believe it. It's not technology, it's not money. It's not people. It's permitting. Getting permits from governments to dive an experimental submersible in their waters makes some of them nervous, especially from a former naval intelligence officer.

[Sean Ryan]

I could see that. I could see that.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, Victor, you are a fascinating human being, and. And I love what you're doing, and I just love the. The. I love your spirit.

[Victor Viscovo]

It's American.

[Sean Ryan]

It's cool to be around.

[Victor Viscovo]

Well, no, I really do. I'm so proud of our country, who we are as a culture. And I know we have a lot of issues. Every country does, believe me. Let's not even talk about the French. But Americans, we always get stuff done. We always come together when it counts. We're optimistic. Failure is almost a badge of honor in our country. It meant you tried, and that is so rare in so many places in the world. We don't understand what a amazing culture we have, and it should be cherished and, when possible, pursued with intensity.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you for saying that, Victor. It was an honor to interview.

[Victor Viscovo]

No, my pleasure. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And thank you for the sig.

[Sean Ryan]

My pleasure, My pleasure.

[Victor Viscovo]

Yeah. My Second Amendment gift. Thank you.

[Sean Ryan]

Run it hard.

[Victor Viscovo]

I shall indeed.

[Sean Ryan]

Foreign Ryan, former Navy SEAL CA contractor and host of the Sean Ryan Show. Much of my life has been dedicated to seeking truth and getting answers, no matter how uncomfortable the question are that we have to ask. But in the age of the psyop, that search has never been more difficult. In September of 2022, the U.S. army's 4th PSYOP group released a cryptic video on YouTube. There is another very important phase of warfare. It has as its target not the body, but the mind of the enemy. Between clips of troops assembling chess pieces and social unrest, phrases begin to appear on screen. They ask, have you ever wondered who's pulling the strings?

[Victor Viscovo]

These are the Psy War soldiers.

[Sean Ryan]

The series you're what you're about to listen to is an attempt to answer that question and an even bigger one. The global power brokers that conduct psychological operations constantly evolve. Technology like AI has evened the playing field. And now, in the era of social media and the democratization of information, all it takes to conduct a psyop is a smartphone.

[Victor Viscovo]

Like and subscribe.

[Sean Ryan]

In each episode we look at a different method of psychological operations, how they've evolved and how they are being deployed. There's a quote that is attributed to a scientist named E.O. wilson that says, we are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. This is a life raft in that sea of both information and and misinformation. Psyops are all around us. They are conducted by corporations, governments, activist groups, intelligence agencies, foreign adversaries, and anyone who knows how to shape perception to get what they want. The series provides an in depth look at how these psyops work from conversations with whistleblowers, experts, historians, tech innovators and more. We look at world events that are being shaped by highly constructed psychological operations specialists and look at the terrifying possibilities of where this could all be headed. Along the way, you'll learn to how about everything from Russian troll farms, fake ghosts in the jungles of Vietnam, mind control cults, to the CIA's involvement in Hollywood. Do you have any people paid by the CIA who are working for television networks? The early history of psyops and psychological experiments laid the foundation for what we see today in modern campaigns that seek to divide culture over polarizing issues. We look at where we are and how we got here. But ultimately this series is a toolkit to help you understand how you're being manipulated and how to spot the signs of a psyop. Before the Army's viral psyop recruitment video ends, the words on screen inform viewers that war is evolving and all the world's a stage. This series is a peek behind the curtain. Welcome to the PSYOP. Buy it [e-mail].