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- [00:00]
Emmanuel
Foreign hello and welcome to the four four Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. Four4Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to Four4Media Co as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments and they get early access to our interview series too. Gain access to that content at 44 Media co. This week we're joined by Becky Ferreira. Becky writes the Abstract, which is Four4Media's science newsletter. You probably are well familiar with it. Everyone who reads it really loves it. We publish that every Saturday. But today we are here to talk about Becky's new book, titled first the Story of Our Obsession with Aliens. Becky, thank you so much for coming on.
- [01:00]
Becky Ferreira
Oh, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
- [01:02]
Emmanuel
I am as well. I have read your book. I am really excited to talk about it. There are many books and documentaries about aliens. I wasn't sure what to expect from your book before I started reading it, but as I was reading it, I was like, oh, of course this is what Becky would write. This is such a Becky angle, and the book covers a lot of ground. But I think that what makes it unique is that it's really a work of anthropology, or at least a lot of it is. And I think you maybe get that sense a little bit from the subtitle because it's just as much about our obsession with aliens and what that says about humanity than it is about theories and potential of alien life itself. And I guess the place where I wanted to start is, was that always the pitch for the book? And why did you eventually land on this angle?
- [02:08]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I actually kind of had the same reaction. The editor that came to me to do this book, who also edited Sam's amazing book, he was like, would you be interested in doing a book about aliens? And I was like, aren't there enough of those? But I should have known as a reporter, it's totally an inexhaustible subject. And the reason I went with this tack was that I really felt like the different everybody's obsessed with aliens. Everybody comes at it from a different angle. You have, it's a topic that's universal and yet spliced up into all these diverse subcultures. So I really wanted to just do a holistic kind of look at that. And in that way, it had to be more about humans because it was just going to be about this kind of Shared obsession that has splintered off into all of these different directions. And I really think, like, because right now we're in such an interesting time in the science of the search for life, it would be great if all of these people talk to each other, don't have to agree on things, but if there could be some grace for everybody given that, you know, it's a really charged and often personal people feel very deeply passionate about their own theories about it. It's probably the scientific field that is the most. Generates the most public interest and controversy. So I just was like, why don't we just do the whole thing and really try to think about why this is a question that animates people, regardless of their background, regardless of whether even they're interested in science or not. Right. This is just something that is universally we love as humans.
- [03:37]
Emmanuel
Yeah. I think even if you don't consider yourself a science nerd and you're not interested in scientific research, that doesn't mean you're not interested in aliens. I think, like, you say everybody's interested in aliens. And where is your personal obsession start? Like, what would you say? Like, do you remember when you first became fascinated with it as a young person, before it became part of your job?
- [04:06]
Becky Ferreira
I feel like. So as an elder millennial, if you're born in the mid-80s, you can't escape it. And every generation has a lot of aliens. So it's one of the point. There's always. But I was growing up with Star Trek Next Generation, and I was really into the X Files, so it was just such a proliferation of the culture. And I also, really, from a young age, loved Carl Sagan's cosmos. So I liked that the angle that he had towards it, which was both, like, looking at the science of how we would look for extraterrestrial life, but it was also, like, he was really good at kind of the spiritual connection aspect, which is what I think animates most people's interest in it. And so it was always kind of there. But I think I really got super, super interested in it as a science reporter, because when I first started, like 15 years ago, the Kepler telescope had just launched and it was discovering, you know, hundreds. And now, you know, it had maybe 5,000 in its lifetime. All these exoplanets, right. All these stars with other planets that had, you know, it was just like such a revolutionary time. And even at that time that I started, scientists were telling me, well, in about, you know, 10 or 15 years, we're going to start being able to characterize all these worlds. And so I've been looking forward to this era that we're now entering for a long time. And it really kind of fascinated me that all of these different scientific tracks were all kind of coming together at the same time. And so I think it's like. It's actually kind of an underreported story how much, like, the astrobiological missions that are going to our nearby planets are doing, and now these exoplanet ones, and then, in addition, having the interstellar object side of it as well, there's just so much discovery. So. So I just think it's like, even though it's talked about a lot in science, there's really even not that holistic view all the time of just how much is going on in this space, literally.
- [05:52]
Emmanuel
Yeah, I mean, we're going to get to some of those missions. I want you to talk about those. But I think it's interesting. We're also. I think we want to talk about, like, the different eras, because I think that's one of the most enlightening things about the book is how the way we look and talk about Aliens reflects the era that we're in. And some of that we know, right? Like, there's, like, different waves of alien obsession. And it's like, in the 50s, it's very much like, about the nuclear age and the Cold War, like, that that's really informing our thinking about Aliens. And I would say, for our generation, like, there was definitely a wave in the 90s which is, I think, pretty different than the. I would consider us in the middle of, like, an alien craze. Like, we're definitely in the middle of another one of those waves. And there was one in the 90s, I would say in the 90s, for us, it was very negative. It was very scary. Like, a lot of it. Do you agree? Like, because my core memory of Aliens is, I think I was 13. We went with the family to see Independence Day in the movie theaters. And I was such a scaredy cat, and I still am. I had to walk out. I was like, this is so scary. This is, like, the scariest idea. And a lot of the Alien movies were like, it was just about. Whereas in the 50s, it was like Invaders of the Body Snatchers, like, aliens are among us. And, like, you don't know who's an alien and who's a communist, right?
- [07:10]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, totally.
- [07:11]
Emmanuel
In the 90s, it was all about, like, they're just gonna come and obliterate us, right? It's like, it was very Evil. And I wonder if you have, like, a take about why that. Why that is.
- [07:23]
Becky Ferreira
I mean, it's also true in the X Files too, right? That they're not benevolent and like, it's. Yeah, yeah, there's. I don't know. That's a great observation because obviously, like, the 90s, I wouldn't say are a particularly paranoid time at all. So, you know, I think it's. I disagree that it was only scary stuff because with Independence Day, it comes in this, like, big rash of alien movies that includes Men in Black and Starship Troopers and Contact. So there's like, all kind. Even in that mid-90s period, you get all kinds of fifth element, like, all kinds of crazy stuff going on. But I don't know what I think. I think maybe it was just like a disaster movie, kind of a renaissance in general, and then aliens were part of that. But I kind of. I feel like the characterization in the 90s is this a lot of the time, like, the relaxation of the idea that actually the government has been wrong, like, giving the ufological community a little bit of a bone on the. You know, like, not because there's so much stigma about believing in UFOs. And then, you know, the government released a bunch of reports in the 90s being like, yeah, we did lie about some of that. So you know what I mean? So there's. There's, like, a little bit more, I think, of an admission. And even in Independence Day, there's. They. They say that they crashed at Roswell. Right. Like, so that the government's been lying about this the whole time and Bill Pullman didn't know a thing about it. And so I think that the kind of. That adversarial relationship kind of advances a little bit more in the 90s as well. But it really. I think it's just been a hodgepodge. Like, there's just.
- [08:57]
Emmanuel
It's.
- [08:58]
Becky Ferreira
There's. Aliens are as ubiquitous as human characters now in pop culture, really, for the last 30 years. What. What do you think, though, Emmanuel, about that?
- [09:06]
Emmanuel
Oh, yeah. No. The thing I would add to that is that, like, there's a lot of 90s pop culture is like, the 90s in a way, at least for, like, North America is the height of optimism and, like, the end of history and all of that.
- [09:20]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, exactly.
- [09:21]
Emmanuel
And I think, like, there's an undercurrent in the culture that knows that's bullshit. So there's a lot of, like, imagining disaster which eventually came. Right. Like, eventually the intuition that this can't last was True. And I think that's a part of it where it's like the images of the White House and New York blowing up, you know, is like something that people intuitively felt is just can't last. Like this. This end of history phase can't last. So I would add that to the.
- [09:49]
Becky Ferreira
You're saying that Independence Day predicted 9, 11.
- [09:52]
Emmanuel
I mean, in a way. In a way, yeah.
- [09:55]
Becky Ferreira
No, I like that interpretation a lot. And it is, you know, the 90s and the crash, the fact that it happens at the turn of millennium, that so much bad shit, suddenly the worm turns. It is a fascinating aspect of our generation's experience and anybody who lived through it. Right. It's just. Yeah. The wave of optimism couldn't have been crashed against a harder edge.
- [10:22]
Emmanuel
In the book, you make it pretty clear that we have had stories or imaginations or thinking about aliens for as far back as we can look into human history. But one thing I thought when I was reading those earliest examples is that it's like a little hard to separate which of these ancient oral traditions are about what we consider today aliens and which of them are just like, creation myths. Right. It's like, if you can look at a lot of stuff in the Bible and a lot of creation stories, like Native American traditions, it's like, when you were looking at that stuff, how did you separate what is traditional religion, an idea of how life came to be, and what is closer to what we consider stories about aliens today?
- [11:17]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, it's such a. I love this question because it's like, centrally what I'm interested in in the book, I think, because I think there is no separation in terms of symbolic meaning for most people. Like, you think about all the technological advances we have now that we can say, like, we know there's exoplanets around these stars or whatever, right. All this amazing detail that we have about our universe and all these mysteries. But when you think about how our ancestors were living, they were living using these stars as survival. I mean, we don't. We just don't have that still that sense of the. Of space as a necessity to understand when to plant crops or when to migrate or when to do all these things, right. They were really hooked in, in a much more visceral way. And I think that counts as, like, being worthy of respect and their traditions that, you know, are lost to time. So I think symbolically, the fact that they clearly used these stories about the personification of the skies, all cultures do it. All cultures make up, like, these asterisms, constellations, say that's that person out there. It's bizarre to me that it's just like this premonition that we all have. And those are functional in a lot of cases for, you know, helping them to survive. And then I don't think you can really separate that substrate mythologically from what aliens emerge out of. And I think aliens as an idea, they start coming into form like at the earliest, maybe 2,500 years ago, when you start getting some people thinking about, well, could these other things in space be just like Earth? And that's like the most primitive idea of if there's other Earths, then there's other life forms similar to us. That's because most of these stories are about divinities, right. And I think, you know, anthropologists and you know, people who study myster probably would be pissed off a little bit by book because I generalize it. It's a very layman's look. But I do think it's worth, like even looking at the kinds of stories that scientists will tell about the search for life, they're still kind of basically the same thing, right? Like you'll have Carl Sagan speculating about the kind of knowledge and technology that could benefit humankind from contact, and it's like that's just a Prometheus story, right? All over again. And the expectations are the same as the, as our ancestors. Even though the kind of the way that we look at the world has changed so much and so much of the universe has come into finer detail and, you know, disrupted a lot of our preconceptions about what the universe is. Carl Jung wrote an interesting book about flying saucers called Flying Saucers that kind of explores this, this trend and that, you know, the obsession with UFOs is really a new iteration of a very old kind of a feeling that not only are there people out there, but they may be walking among us, you know, this kind of ancient idea. So it's, I don't think you can really ever take that out of the search for alien life. Even the most scientific skeptic minded person still kind of has a little bit of that in there.
- [14:08]
Emmanuel
Yeah, no, it's a great subject for that reason, I'm sure. I mean, you know this better than anyone. Something that could be frustrating about talking to scientists is that they're very reserved, right. Like even when they work on incredible science and are making incredible breakthroughs because it's so hard to prove something. Absolutely. In science there's always base for doubt and skepticism about even their own Research. So it's difficult to write about it with the certainty and the urgency that you seek, like in journalism. But then, like you say when you talk about alien life, it's one of those areas of science where suddenly it shifts to like this very philosophical, loosey goosey discussion, like with quantum. Right. It's like people who don't know anything about quantum physics, they'll get spiritual and use quantum physics as a way into that. So I think that's another thing that makes it such an interesting subject in science.
- [15:11]
Becky Ferreira
Totally.
- [15:12]
Emmanuel
Do you have a favorite ancient text that you discovered while doing the research? Like a very old example of people referring to something that we might consider. Consider alien life today?
- [15:25]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah. I mean, the best example is like the earliest alien story, really, this Lukian true history satire that comes out in the second century. So that's not super ancient. You obviously can have sky myths. Those go back, I would assume, tens of thousands of years, but they're lost to time. But this is a really funny satire that literally also starts with a bunch of horny dudes wanting to have sex with the aliens, which I think is like the trope, you know, tells you that that trope is as old as alien lore itself. And. And you can even see that trope in like Zeus coming down to impregnate people or whatever. Right. Like, that is like, so old. So. So that's one of my favorite ones. But I would say in terms of, like, real life, I do think we take for granted as, you know, being the last human species, that it was only 40,000 years ago that Neanderthals were still around. It was only 80,000 years ago that we had Denisovans in the mix too. Like, this is very new that we are the only humans. We interbred with these other human species. And they. They were. Culturally, there was overlap, but they were quite different. And, you know, so I do think a lot about those interactions. And that is one of the most fascinating things I. That I wish I could just go back in time and see what the dynamics were. Because that is, I think something that may have animated our search for. For life is just like, well, we're meeting these other cultures all the time on Earth. And you can even go beyond that to just domestication. It takes human empathy to domestic a. Or a horse. Right. It takes trying to get into a different intelligence as mind. And so. So I think that that is just like we've kind of been doing that alien contact on Earth for a long time. So it makes sense that we're still, we're just extending it to space. Now.
- [17:12]
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Becky Ferreira
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- [18:35]
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- [21:38]
Emmanuel
One of the other interesting themes in the book, as you referred to earlier, is how the idea of aliens really challenges religion. I remember from like grade school education about science that the idea that Earth wasn't at the center of the solar system was apocryphal. It's heretical, right? Like that was a challenge to religious institutions. But I would say you really do a good job of explaining how the idea of alien life is even a bigger challenge to religious institutions at the time. Can you explain why that is?
- [22:22]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, especially the Catholic tradition. It was not only that, like that Earth was central, it was also that humans were supposed to be the big creation of God. So there's amazing debates. Like the big thing with alien debates and the Renaissance era is often like, how could they? Are they descended from Adam, like, this is a big problem. Like, aliens can't be if, you know, they can't be God's children if they're not descended from Adam. So what are they? And how do they exist in the context of God's universe? So especially for the Catholic tradition, they were there. There was. It's interesting because there's. You do get a couple priests and theologians that, you know, in the Middle Ages are talking about aliens, like, really thinking about that. And it doesn't really get to be heretical until you get the Copernican revolution. And that is just such a central threat to the whole worldview. But you do have these other kind of interesting examples, like Maimonides, the Jewish scholar, and he. His great book, the Guide for the Perplexed, which is still like one of my favorite titles that anybody has ever. It's very relevant title. A thousand years later, I'm still perplexed. But he had the geocentric idea of the universe as well. He thought Earth was at the center, but he didn't think humans were at the center. He thought that you got to know God by giving kind of an equal look at other denizens of this planet. I don't think he explicitly said other planets, but, like, that's kind of a different idea that opens the way to have a theology that's open to aliens because it's like you don't have to care about whether these aliens are descended from the same tribes or whatever. Right. Like, that's not important. God will express himself in a million different ways. And you see that in early Islam as well. It's like Allah is the Lord of the worlds, right? So there's like a space for an immensity of the universe to still be within these. These religions. But the Catholic tradition in particular was very. It was pretty spectacular kind of collision when Copernican comes in. And so. So, yeah, that was. That was kind of unique in that way because it was so based on that kind of Aristotle. I can't say Aristotelian.
- [24:27]
Emmanuel
You did it. You just did it.
- [24:29]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah. Not used to using him as a verb, but that very, very, like, you know, Earth is special. What's going on in space is totally different. And that had to be just, you know, bulldozed in the Renaissance.
- [24:43]
Emmanuel
So, yeah, yeah, I think it's like that part of the story probably everybody is familiar with. The really interesting examples is how are like Maimonides, as you said, you give quite a few examples of people who try to bridge the gap. Like in this Time period. The religious thinkers, the theologians or whatever, they're really the leading philosophers of the age. And not all of them were so dogmatic. Like, a lot of them really tried to incorporate this idea into their thinking and into their religion. And I thought that was really great. I especially perked up when I saw Maimonides show up. I actually tried to read a guy to the Perplexed. I tried to listen to the audiobook because I was very. I was very. I was kind of obsessed with him. In college, in college, we had to do like a. Like a final project kind of thing. And it's like, it was a creative piece. And then you had to explain, like, your philosophy of your writing and mine was very much. It's a terrible essay. Jason has bugged me to, like, dig up this essay because it was like.
- [25:48]
Becky Ferreira
I want to read it.
- [25:49]
Emmanuel
I think it was titled how to Be Perplexed or something. And it was. A lot of it was about Maimonides. And then a couple of years ago, I was like, let me actually listen to this book. And it's like, impenetrable. It's nonsense. It's very hard to read because he's like a medieval religious thinker, but he's a very interesting character. And I really like this quote here from the Guide for the Perplexed, which. The Perplexed is like how to be Confused, which is this I do remember from studying him. It's like part of his philosophy is that the only way to understand God is to constantly question and confuse yourself. And in the trying to answer and the trying to solve that is sort of like the trying to approach the divine or something like this. I love that. But he gives this explanation for why, like, how to incorporate the idea of aliens into religion, basically. And he says it is of great power advantage that man should know his station and not erroneously imagine that the whole universe exists only for him. Pretty cool. Like, it's a pretty. Pretty progressive thinker for an ancient, ancient time. Really, really, really love that.
- [27:05]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, absolutely. And you. And you see how that he's not even directly saying it's aliens, right. But that. That. It just opens the pathway for so many of the conversations that come centuries after to be. That's. It's okay to allow for that. Right, right.
- [27:19]
Emmanuel
And like I said, it's like they're talking about religion, but really you can, like, replace God with the universe or something. And that is how they're having philosophical discussion at the time. And he's basically saying, like, God, the universe is so great. How could you possibly diminish it? To imagine that you're the only life in it? Right. Like, that would be belittling God.
- [27:44]
Becky Ferreira
It's so funny because the kind of character that I use for the Catholic dogma, Giordano Bruno, who famously was burned at the stake by the Catholic Church.
- [27:52]
Emmanuel
Can you explain? Tell a little bit about it?
- [27:53]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's amazing. He's a fascinating character, but he was just a really. He was a big Copernican, and it just made sense to him that, you know, he was profoundly religious. He was a Nolan priest and you know, wandered around and, like, what's very famous for these kind of amazing acts of memory and things like that. But he was also very argumentative, and he had a lot of heretical beliefs beyond the Copernican stuff. He was like, you know, a debate. He was a debate guy, like, debate, but in a time where that's not a very safe thing to be, especially if you're going around saying heretical things about Catholic dogma. So that's how he eventually, you know, landed on the stake. But he. He had. There's a lot of debate over how much the Copernicus was part of that. He just had so many very, very dangerous ideas for the time. But he really believed that this immensity of the universe. I mean, he's one of the first people who points out, like, these are suns. They have planets. This is just like, you know, every star you see could have planets and life on it. And he just thought that makes God so much more immense. Like, why would you not worship the God of the universe with all of the stars and all of the life forms and. And all of this, and limits yourself to Earth? So he really is the sort of forefather of that in sort of the Catholic tradition. And, you know, they celebrate him every year now in the. In the place in Rome where he was. Where he was burned. And he's kind of become this, like, martyr for free thought. But he was just, like, he was so fascinated because he just, you know, he didn't. He didn't give an F. Like, he just went around saying it and just was. And even when he was condemned, the. I don't think it's apocryphal because I feel like it's been sourced so many times, but he was like, I think you're more afraid to give me this sentence than I am to receive it. Yeah.
- [29:50]
Emmanuel
So this kind of takes us up to the scientific revolution, right? We're leaping over vast eras of History. But I feel like in the scientific revolution, you sketch out these two camps and thinking about aliens that more or less hold up until today. And those are the alien optimists and the alien pessimists. Can you explain those two camps? Yeah.
- [30:14]
Becky Ferreira
And it really emerges, like, in the century after Giordano Bruno's execution, there's this whole camp of people like Kristen Huygens, the Dutch polymath. He's finding the first microscopic organisms, Right? So it's interesting that that kind of goes. The telescope technology is happening parallel to that. And so he's. You know, people. Galileo is looking at the moons of Jupiter, and he's looking at these tiny creatures, and they're just putting two and two together and being like, if there's creatures on our planet that we have not known about till now because they're so small and there's all these planets, you know, it's just insane to think that there's not life. And this is the basic formulation you still get today from the alien optimists. Like, yeah, it would be so much stranger to be the only inhabited planet than when you see that odds game of the universe and you just see how much life we discover even on this planet all the time. And then the pessimists have always kind of been like, yeah, well, so where is it? You know, and it's a good point, right? Like, there's. And you get that. You get there. There's a lot. In the 1700s and the. And the 1800s, there's just. It's all alien optimism. It's all like, how do we deal with this revelation that there's. We're gonna get. We're gonna go to Mars, there's gonna be aliens. Venus is aliens. Everybody. Everybody's aliens everywhere. And. And then you have people like this Anglic William Whewell, who I believe is credited for coining the word scientist. He's very interesting character that comes out in the 1800s, and he's kind of like, yeah, but if you look at all these. If you. If you're thinking about having these planets around these stars, like, that would be a really, really small zone where you would be able to have life like Earth. They'd either be too hot or too cold. So he literally, you know, before there's an idea of a Goldilocks zone, is articulating that idea. And he also says a version of, like, well, like, yeah, so if there's life on Jupiter, why is it not here? Like, why aren't we getting. So he also kind of articulates an early Fermi paradox as well. It's only when I think we get into the 20th century and there's more, even more granular detail that you start to have that be the formative idea. That's why we call it the Fermi paradox and not the Wewell one. But it's definitely the same conversation. And I think both. Both are really valid. Like, I can see the argument each way, which is why it's so compelling.
- [32:28]
Emmanuel
Right? Yeah. And it seems the. The arguments for why the Fermi paradox, I think everybody knows. But the essential paradox is if there's. If the universe is so vast and infinite, like, and full of life, then why are we seeing it? Like, where. Where are the aliens? The arguments for why? And you get into all the theories you kind of. You touch on, all of them have gotten pretty. Pretty sophisticated. Right. Like. Like the Dark Forest one. Can you explain that one? And when that emerged?
- [32:59]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm not sure actually when that one emerged. I think that might be kind of innate because it's called the Dark Forest one now after the famous series, the Three Body Problem series.
- [33:07]
Sponsor Host 2
What.
- [33:08]
Becky Ferreira
I can't remember the name of the whole trilogy. But anyway, point being, it's the idea that you don't want to make a. You don't want to communicate, you don't want to send messages out. Right. Because what if they're hostile? You just don't know. So you kind of keep. You got. If you're smart, you keep. You lay low. And that's why you don't have aliens kind of contacting everyone else. They're just. They're doing a game theory approach of why do this? There's also like, so many variations of that. I think the best answer for me is just, it's a really big universe, and we've seen that Earth is very special. Now, as an odds game, I still think it would be much more surprising if there were no aliens than if there are. That would be so weird. However, like, when. I think when you. When, you know, you get the kind of Sagan view of the universe as well in the 60s and 70s where they were, where the public communication is better about how big this universe actually is and it's accelerating all. You know, it does make sense that you may just be kind of ships in the night in terms of time, like civilization can flourish and it's just the wrong period of time or whatever. So I just, I do think the idea that I go to the book as well in the Fermi Kind of section and the solutions to the Fermi paradox, the rare Earth idea seems the most compelling to me. It's not that there's no other ones, but we are very lucky about the special set of circumstances that led to life and complex life on Earth. And it just may be really, really rare.
- [34:40]
Emmanuel
Something else that I got from the book is that like after the scientific revolution, aliens became. It's very much like the medium is the message. Like aliens are also stories about media. And I think obviously the example that everybody loves is the War of the Worlds radio play by Orson Welles that people thought was real and caused panic in the streets. There's a great this American Life episode about it. And I forget where it was in South America, but like the same. Like it wasn't just that once that Orson Welles did it. Like the play has been redone in other places in the world and it has always caused a panic, which I thought was interesting. But you gave an example that I haven't heard of before called the Great Hoax, which I thought was very apropos. Can you talk about the Great Hoax?
- [35:35]
Becky Ferreira
It's, I think so essential for even understand. It's got all the elements you would think of a good hoax. Today, new media. There was a penny press coming out. Okay, so I'll situate the scene. It was in the 1830s in New York and the penny press had just been invented. And that was as the name implies, you could buy an issue for 1 cent. And before that, these papers were like 6, 7 cents. And they were kind of for the elite. And then pennypress just made this possible for everybody to read everything. So as you can imagine, a lot of these papers were printing stuff in the way that they had the incentive that you get in social media today.
- [36:13]
Emmanuel
Yeah, right. It's kind of like an Internet dynamic. It's like increased access and increased the quantity of things to read and.
- [36:21]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, and competition between the different platforms. And so they would all be kind of competing to have the most sensational story. You also have new technologies in science, so you're starting to see the dawn of like the mega telescope. And one person, the most famous astronomer probably in the world at this time was John Herschel, the son of William Herschel, this astronomical legacy. He had built a telescope in South America that was getting a lot of. It was one of the big first Southern telescopes. Right. So that was in the mix there. And people were beginning to see details of the moon and that would lead eventually to seeing details of Mars later in the century, which, you know, Percival Lovell. That's a whole other thing. So that's all kind of in the mix. And then you have, you know, a fabulous with a grievance, which is always familiar. Familiar things. This guy, Richard Adams Walk, who was a writer for the New York sun, one of the most famous penny presses at the time, he kind of got ticked off about these scientific reports that would. Occasionally they'd look at something on the moon and be like, we think we see a house. And he was just like, this is dumb. I'm gonna write a big piece. So John Herschel has actually seen. Oh, man. Bats and cities and, like, ooh. And like.
- [37:34]
Emmanuel
And they.
- [37:34]
Becky Ferreira
And. But the thing is, they couched it. Like, it looked like it was from John Herschel, and he had no idea this was going on. And they say it's like an excerpt from that the son acquired from the Edinburgh Journal of Science or something like that. Like, they make. They make it seem legit. And so there's a lot. A lot of people, you know, including me, when I first came to this story was like, oh, this is a story about a credulous public. And to some extent it is, but it's also, like, it was made to be misinformation, right? And anyway, it just went, like, skyrocketed. People loved this story, and the circulation of the New York sun went through the moon, to coin a phrase. But, like, it was just, like, so successful. And, you know, in the years afterwards, obviously Herschel was like, yeah, I didn't see a bunch of man bats on the moon, though. And he was, like, tickled at first, but then he spent the rest of his life literally in the position of being, like, refuting this story over and over again. So it's very familiar to, like, the times we live in now. And it has kind of all those perfect little elements of, like, new media, new science, technology, someone with a grievance, and just. Just a public that is so hungry for the alien story. Right? Like, that it just. And I think. I think it's an early test or two of just, like, alien stories have always been blockbusters. There was blockbusters before that, but it was like a test case of, like, this is good content.
- [39:00]
Emmanuel
Yeah. My favorite tidbit about that story is that Edgar Allan Poe got involved, right?
- [39:05]
Becky Ferreira
He tried to sue because he was like, no, I had this story about doing a hoax, and he had, like. It's called the balloon, something in the hands, flaw in the magic balloon or something like that. He's. Some story that he wrote that was, like, trying to do a similar thing. So it's like not even one person. Yeah, so I think he, like, I don't think he ever was successful, but he like made a, made a gripe about it.
- [39:27]
Emmanuel
Yeah, very, very good. We, we know this because, like, we're in media and we see how people write about science. We see a lot of people who do a poor job. We see a lot of reporting on aliens that is really bad. And you obviously know this, right? It's like, you know that it's a hot commodity in your beat where a lot of stuff is. Like, you have like, one of your great skills is that you take these subjects that are really esoteric and you, you, you make it clear to people why they're interesting and why they should matter. And the alien part of the beat is kind of like, salacious. And I just wondered, like, knowing, knowing this, like, knowing that it's a very tabloidy subject, how does that inform how you write about, about, about this stuff?
- [40:17]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, it's hard because. And I don't think I have a perfect track writer piece. I don't. I think social media has made it so much. There's so many more stories that come. Like, it's difficult. Cause, you know, a lot of scientists will pump up their results even in the study. And it's hard to, you know, if they say in their study, something's a possible biosignature, I'm going to put that in the, you know, lead of the story. But then there's going to be usually a lot of pushback from other scientists being like, does this meet them? You know what I mean? So I think it's really, really tough, honestly. And I think for my part, I just try to, like, stay in my lane. I will go, like, I will adjudicate peer research review. When it's really salacious, I will try to get as many comments from relevant experts in the field as I can. That's just my way of doing it. When people come with more salacious stories, like, you know, I get emails all the time being like, you know, there was an interdimensional being in my, in my living room. And I think they're really interesting and I, like, respond to a lot of them being like, that's interesting, but, like, I can't adjudicate that information. That's not my skill set. There's like, people that can do that, but I just don't know how to say that was an interdimensional being. I don't know, you know, like, I don't know what to do with that. So I think what's, what's fascinating and I think honestly a lot of readers want this is just being like, well how, what is the bar for a biosignature? And they're like surprised when it's like scientists totally disagree about that.
- [41:34]
Emmanuel
Yeah.
- [41:36]
Becky Ferreira
So I think inviting people in, making it clear scientists are debating this and that is okay. Like that's what's supposed to happen. You're supposed to see a lot of crazy debate in the, in the public sphere over it. Now I think a lot of scientists would say like some of these stories there's too much media attention on them. But it's like, I think, you know, something a great example would be I think the phosphine story. There was phosphine detected a possible biomarker on Venus. There's a lot of, you know, geological explanations for it, but it's a bit, you know, it's an interesting thing to see. And if you look at, if you look up phosphine Venus in like Google News or whatever, you'll just see the debate playing out over the last five years. And I think that's what we have to get used to is like this team says this and this team and you're just going to have to get used to ambiguous results. And that's not how we are trained. The way that pop culture has trained us is like no, there's going to be an alien right there and it will be very unambiguous. But I think that's at least if you're interested in how scientists are approaching it, it's going to be tantalizing. And I think especially just the last thing I'll say was the, with, with these exoplanet kind of discoveries, it's like how say you really did find something that was like so unequivocally a bios. It would be so hard to explain geologically, but it's just like some planet that's 500 light years away. What are you going to do with that information? A lot of the time we're not going to then get a contact moment. Even if there was intelligent life capable of communicating that would take a thousand years for a two way conversation. So it's, I think people need to realize like this is a multi generational project, always has been. We're building on our ancestors and so that's just not going to be something we'll see in our lifetimes most likely. Right. So it's not the answer people want and it's not even the Answer I want, but it's the answer.
- [43:23]
Emmanuel
Yeah. I think from my perspective, and this is something that we have done a few times, is that the story is not necessarily the content of a specific claim or a specific study. It's the fact that such a salacious, provocative information was published in a reliable journal or is talked about in a congressional hearing or released information from the Pentagon. And I think that has, in my opinion, been the story since 2017 with the Pentagon UFO videos. The videos themselves are interesting, but I think what is more interesting is how different organizations, including government bodies, are handling this. And going back to our discussion about how different eras, how their stories about aliens, what they reflect about that moment in time. I think the Pentagon UFO videos are like the core key text of our moment about aliens. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about those images. The discussion around them, the hearings around them, the media coverage. What do you think they say about our current moment in culture that's such.
- [44:54]
Becky Ferreira
A. I'd be interested in your take on it too. They were really a moment for me where I started taking everything like that a lot more seriously. Not that I never. I. It's clear that people have had strange experiences and I trust their, you know, recollections of all that, whatever like that. I can't say it's aliens, but I'm not going to call people liars when they say they've had weird experiences. That, that is. Those are so concrete. And the fact that you can, as a couple of those videos have. Have the pilots reacting as well. And I think, you know, a Navy pilot who's seen like tens of thousands of flight hours, if they're surprised by something and the way that, you know, these things look is just. It is so everyone should want to know what that is. So I think, I think it was a great deal of validation for the community, the ufological community, which I don't. I don't think should ever be thought of as a monolith. Obviously, it's very kaleidoscopic. But it was like this, you know, this footage is so incontrovertible in terms of, like, it's something so strange. Is it alien? I don't know, but it's something so strange and unexplainable. And it's like these, It's. These pilots are just astonished. And so that was like, when I first actually started to, To. To really cook into that world a bit more, mostly just because, like, again, that's. That's evidence that I can actually point to and be like, that's weird. You know what I mean? And I think it also really did change. It was a sign of the change of posture that the government is trying to do, I don't think always successfully. But, you know, NASA has tried to have these independent UAP reports where they're really like, you know, asking for sightings and asking for this kind of thing from the public and trying to foster this sense of transparency and openly saying, like, nobody should be stigmatized, which is, you know, that was a huge thing in the past. Of course, if you reported these things, you could risk, like, your career by, you know, people saying you're some fringe lunatic who believes in, you know, Martians or whatever, and the recognition of the failure of the past strategies with the US Government and towards this topic. And so I think that's going to be all really interesting, and I hope that they continue to release them. I don't think that. I think the damage is kind of done there.
- [47:05]
Emmanuel
Yeah.
- [47:06]
Becky Ferreira
But it's a start. I think it's better than continuing to have this attitude of like, we don't release anything and we don't take it seriously and there's no aliens and blah, blah, blah, you know?
- [47:15]
Emmanuel
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [47:18]
Becky Ferreira
But what's your take, Emmanuel?
- [47:19]
Emmanuel
Yeah, thank you for asking, because I was really setting myself up to give my own take. The. I think it's a perfect, like, Rosetta Stone for our moment in culture, because at its core, the situation is that we have more information than ever, right? Like, we have the instruments on these aircraft to give us more detail, like higher resolution, more fidelity of information about what used to be like, a. Like a rumor in the local tavern about, like, flying saucers, right? Like, we have. It's grainy, but it's like highly scientific instruments recording a ufo, Unidentified Flying Object. That's what it is. No matter what your opinion of it is, it's like that is what we're seeing. Maybe it's not technically a flying object because it's some sort of error in the instrumentation. Right. Or like an optical illusion or whatever. Right. But it's like we're seeing a thing that we don't understand. And despite, or even because of having more information, it feels like we know less. Right? So it's like. And that's something that is true across culture right now. So there's that aspect of it, and then there's also the aspect of, like, as you've said, like, a lot of distrust in institutions and government specifically, and sometimes for good reason. Right? So it's like we have many years of the government waving off anyone who's even bringing up the subject. And now it kind of flipped. And I feel like there's almost too much entertaining in government of these stories, right? Like there's too many hearings and like there's too many people coming through and there's too many wild things being said in places that used to be reserved for like very serious discussion. And then finally, obviously, like it's a huge culture of grift and on the margin there is just like a ton of grifters, you know what I mean? And it's like sometimes those grifters make it into very, very serious positions of power, you know what I mean? So it's like. So I think regardless of what you think about the content of the videos, I think the way that they're working their way through our culture really is emblematic of where we're at.
- [49:47]
Becky Ferreira
I think that's so funny. The point that you made too, about the overindulgence, I think that's so true as well. And that really muddies the waters even more, you know?
- [49:54]
Emmanuel
Yeah. Like the first time that there was a hearing, right, about one of these videos, you were like, oh my God, like we're really living through a moment. And then like the fourth time, right, you're like, who is this guy? Like, why are they letting this guy.
- [50:06]
Becky Ferreira
Talk and show it then? You know? I agree with everybody, like show it. If you don't hint around it and like, you know, like don't dance around it, it's just weird. Yeah, yeah.
- [50:18]
Emmanuel
But back to the more serious science of it. You go through, near the end of the book, through a bunch of upcoming really amazing sci fi sounding missions that could teach us something about alien life. Do you have a favorite? Do you have one that you think is very promising?
- [50:38]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, I do. And I want to really represent it because it's in danger. The Mars Sample Return mission, which is a very troubled mission. It's like it has had a lot of trouble. It's supposed to be the pickup mission for what perseverance is now. Perseverance is drilling these little samples and caching the ones that are very exceptional, including one that just, I think in September, it was in September, was recognized to have a potential biosignature in it.
- [51:08]
Emmanuel
So.
- [51:08]
Becky Ferreira
So it's like literally it's finding the kind of evidence you want, but it doesn't have the instrumentation, obviously as a tiny rover to determine a geological or a biological cause for what it found. So the idea was you'd have another mission, come pick these up and bring them back. Because of the Trump administration's cuts to NASA, this is like really imperiled, one of the most imperiled missions. It's not like it's a perfect, it's had real management problems and stuff like that. It's a beleaguered mission. But it should, like, that's the, that's the best chance we have is to really get something in our laboratories to look and make the distinction. There's obviously like, there's lots of things on Earth that scientists have in labs that they can't make the distinction whether it's, you know, an ancient Earth sample, whether it's life or not. So it's not necessarily gonna be a slam dunk, but I think I'm most interested in that one because that's the most near term delivery I can think of. We have really exciting missions going to Europa and to, to Titan, but I don't think that's gonna, neither one of them is probably gonna be able to give us a sample that is like unambiguously life, right? The Europa one's not gonna land and the Dragonfly one going to Titan, it's not really equipped to do that. So I think just if I wanted to bet on life being discovered in my lifetime, alien life being discovered, the Mars sample return is the best bet. And so I really hope it comes back. And I think if NASA doesn't do it, then it's possible the Chinese space program will do something similar. So maybe it'll be another decade on or something that someone does it. But I think that's just the fact that it's just sitting there on Mars right now drives me insane. We gotta see if that's life or not. And even though it would just be a dead microbe if it was, that's everything, right? Then you can suddenly have this data point is entered where if life can emerge, it apparently does, even in microbial form. That's like, you know, then you know that it must be common, right?
- [53:11]
Emmanuel
So yeah, that's. By the way, that's another thing that's very emblematic of the time in a very Trumpian thing where like, he'll, he'll campaign, he'll say, like, if I get an office, I'll just show you the aliens, you know what I mean? I'm just gonna like open the doors and like show you the crash spaceships and stuff. And then he gets an office and he like kills the most promising program that might actually tell us something about alien life that's such a good point.
- [53:31]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, exactly.
- [53:33]
Emmanuel
Also, by the way, I'm disappointed. I thought you were going to say, like, isn't there a theoretical mission to like, drill into Europa? Isn't there like a.
- [53:40]
Becky Ferreira
It's just so many decades out that that would even happen if it were up to me. There should be an orbiter around every planet at all times. Like, it's just. Yeah. So I don't care about, like, we should all be doing that as a collective society. Society.
- [53:54]
Emmanuel
Yeah. Yeah. Because Europa is like, what, it's like six miles?
- [53:58]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah. Well, it's probably got really, really thick. Yeah, definitely several. Several miles deep. So. And so Enceladus is also like a really. This is another layup. I don't know why we haven't done this.
- [54:08]
Sponsor Host 2
It.
- [54:09]
Becky Ferreira
It actually like squirts its water out all the time. It has plumes that geysers on itself pole that have already been sampled once, just not by a spacecraft that was able to see whether it was life or not. So just send one there and have it go through the plume with some astrobiological detection kit and come on. Yeah, it's just like that. So that's another one. But what. It surprises me that there's. There's a couple of concept missions for an Encelad. Enceladus mission like that, but it's just a long way to Saturn and a lot of these missions, like, they're just. They're just not big priorities. And it makes me sad because can you imagine, you just. You get samples back from Mars and there's dead aliens in there. There's samples back from Enceladus, and there's the live aliens in there. Like. Yeah, it's just, you know. Or it would be interesting if not as well, you know, it's just. Yeah, yeah. Our own solar system has so many interesting sites.
- [55:03]
Emmanuel
Yeah. That's another thing. When you. When I read the book and you see all of it in aggregate, because it's like, I see it over the years, I read your stories, but it's like when you lay it all out there, I was like, oh, there's actually, like a lot going on. There's a lot going on in the solar system. More than I imagine.
- [55:18]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, yeah, totally. It's a cool place.
- [55:21]
Emmanuel
It is. In the book, you describe something that's called, quote, Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence, which you refer to as the plan. Can you explain what that is?
- [55:38]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, it's this. It's. It's this group of researchers that collaborate around the world, sometimes under UN auspices, to kind of figure out like, what's the game plan for if we find different forms of life? What happens if we find microbial life on Mars? What happens if we get contacted by an alien beacon that's clearly unambiguous? How does the world respond to this? And so it has recommendations like the scientific community needs to be as transparent and open as possible. The results need to be coming out quickly, but they also need to be peer reviewed as quickly as possible. And is trying to do this balance act of, you know, we want to be getting that information out to the public so we're not getting accused of being secretive. At the same time, it's like we want to be getting good information out of the public on something that's possibly very ambiguous. And it's a tough, it's a tough tightrope. But you know, it's, it's the, it's the game plan for now to try to coordinate how that would actually go down.
- [56:32]
Emmanuel
Do you think that's a naive group of people? Are they going to be, do you think, like, should we actually make contact? Is that being brushed aside and like the Pentagon steps in and they do whatever they think they should do or.
- [56:46]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, totally. I don't think it's naive. I think most of the people who even made that plan would say that's not, that's a sketch. They, there's like the people that are involved in this conversation, the researchers and experts and everything would love to have more public input on how to do like honestly, they. This is a topic where there's a lot of public forums and workshops and things that I encourage anyone to like look and seek out because they want to, to do, to have public input. But, but it's also just like you got to have some plan. I think most of them think it's really incomplete. I think most of them are desperate for subject matter in, you know, experts on things like how would this metabolize through social media, you know, how would this get siloed, things like that. And I think, you know, something like I'm not sure the military would necessarily like the way that you see an arrival or movies like that where. Or even contact. The military always comes in and it's now it's a military project, blah, blah, blah. I'm not, I'm not even sure. Like, I don't know how it would play out. It depends so much on the nature of the thing. And so I think it's, it's, it's funny. It's, it is naive. It has to be naive by nature because it's trying to anticipate an unanticipated event. So, but it's just like a way to, I think, try to start the conversation. So honestly, when you talk to researchers involved in trying to, you know, game out these post detection scenarios, they are like, this is, you know, this is rudimentary. This is like we don't, you know, they're happy to admit it's naive in that way. But yeah, gotta start somewhere.
- [58:15]
Emmanuel
I think the existence of the group and the conversation itself is fascinating. And shout out to our mutual friend Daniel Oberhaus, who wrote an entire book about how would we in theory communicate with aliens, which is a good, good complimentary read to Becky's book. Let's do a lightning round at the end here. I'm going to ask you a few questions about aliens. I want to make clear that when I talk about aliens, in this case, I'm not talking about like bacteria or signs of microbes on some rock. I'm talking about like little green men or something intelligent.
- [58:54]
Becky Ferreira
Nice. Yeah, yeah. Civilization. Some kind of.
- [58:56]
Emmanuel
Yeah, something like this. Something we see in movies. Do you think aliens have ever been to Earth?
- [59:02]
Becky Ferreira
I don't know, but I doubt it.
- [59:04]
Emmanuel
Okay. Do you think there are or were aliens in our solar system also?
- [59:10]
Becky Ferreira
Don't know, but doubt it.
- [59:12]
Emmanuel
Do you think there are or were aliens in our galaxy?
- [59:16]
Becky Ferreira
Ooh, sorry, could I amend that answer? I do, actually. I hold out a unfounded belief that maybe Mars had microbes and things like that. Maybe Mars and Venus would have microbes. Oh, you said no microbes.
- [59:29]
Emmanuel
No microbes.
- [59:30]
Becky Ferreira
Okay, no microbes. Sorry, sorry.
- [59:31]
Emmanuel
Fuck microbes. We're talking little green men. Spaceship.
- [59:34]
Becky Ferreira
The first rule of lightning round and it's out of my head. I'm sorry. I love microbes. I'm just a microbe person. Okay, so no, in that case. No, I doubt it. Yeah.
- [59:43]
Emmanuel
Okay, I'll accept it. If they had like really small cities, like microbial cities and microbial spaceships. Yeah. But you're saying no to that.
- [59:50]
Becky Ferreira
No, I am. I'm saying no to that.
- [59:52]
Emmanuel
Okay. What about in our galaxy, the Milky Way?
- [59:55]
Becky Ferreira
Yes, Yes. I would be very surprised if there's no.
- [59:57]
Emmanuel
Yes.
- [59:58]
Becky Ferreira
Intelligent aliens in our galaxy.
- [59:59]
Sponsor Host 1
Yeah.
- [60:00]
Emmanuel
Like, what about the next one over? What is it? Alpha Centauri? You think there's somebody over there?
- [60:04]
Becky Ferreira
That's pretty close. I mean, I doubt it because we haven't heard anything. There's no signs of it in our near Term in our near like hundred light year radius. I don't really think so. I think we would see signs maybe.
- [60:17]
Emmanuel
Do you think aliens know we're here?
- [60:20]
Becky Ferreira
I don't know. I don't know that one.
- [60:23]
Emmanuel
That's acceptable. I think it's interesting that you're not like a hard. No, no.
- [60:27]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah.
- [60:28]
Emmanuel
You think it's possible maybe, maybe they took a look and they're like, oh cool, they're there.
- [60:34]
Becky Ferreira
Well, it's possible that they could be doing the same thing as us and being like. I think if an alien was you know, 600 light years away and maybe they don't have interstellar travel but they have our technologies, they, if you look at Earth, you can tell it's inhabited. Right?
- [60:48]
Emmanuel
They're looking, they see our signals in the same way we're looking for other people's signals.
- [60:51]
Becky Ferreira
Techno signatures coming out. We have radio leakage, we, we have pollution in the skies. We have like a lot of things that signal that, that. So if they're out there and they're looking at us, I think then that's why I would preserve, I would say, I don't know. But they might not, they might be like cool, you know, not every, not every species might, might want contact, you know.
- [61:10]
Emmanuel
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's by the way when we would deploy this plan we just talked about is when we, when we would recognize one of those signals that. Yeah, yes, yeah. And then final question. Do you think we'll ever make contact with aliens?
- [61:25]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sorry to be so agnostic on it. I genuinely don't, I just don't know. I think, you know, that's the most fascinating question and like the fact that I love stories in pop culture about aliens that are really different because I just think obviously that is the most likely thing. It's not going to be Star Trek universe where we're all anatomically the same. Like it's, it's so I just, I think it's really, would be extraordinarily strange to have no complex intelligent life. And even in our galaxy, especially you, I like that you phrase it. And if it was now or ever, like I think it's gotta be, but to have the ability to actually do it, to contact and the interests, I just don't. Maybe humans are unique in that way. Maybe a lot of aliens are just like why, why would I be interested? Like there's other intelligent species on our planet and they're not interested in searching for aliens.
- [62:21]
Emmanuel
You know what I mean, actually that's a good point. I meant to ask you, I forgot to write this down, but do you have a favorite depiction of aliens in media? It could be book, movie, whatever. Do you have a favorite depiction of aliens?
- [62:35]
Becky Ferreira
Yeah, I love. My favorite is A Story of youf Life by Ted Chiang, which is the book that Arrival's based on. And if you haven't read it, it's short, it's a novella, but it's just great. It's fantastic. I also really like. Nope. The Jordan Peele movie. So those would be my top two, I think.
- [62:55]
Emmanuel
Have you read A Memory Called Empire?
- [62:58]
Becky Ferreira
No, I haven't.
- [62:59]
Emmanuel
Yeah, A Memory Called Empire. Arketti Martine. She is a historian and it's a very good book. It's like far, far future. Like we're a space faring humanity and my favorite version of aliens in media is when we contact them, they're already like. To me it makes sense that if we were to contact aliens, they wouldn't be a singular culture or species like. Like humanity. Right. They would already be a confederation of multiple species. So it's like one of those. It's like they meet the aliens, but it's actually a more layered culture and like multi species culture by the time we meet to meet them. Half Life 2, also a video game, has a similar. Similar concept.
- [63:54]
Becky Ferreira
Very cool. I'll check those out for sure.
- [63:57]
Emmanuel
Definitely recommend the book to everybody listening. I think we'll leave that there. Becky, thank you so much. I am legally obligated to read this outro by our friend Joseph Cox, which says as a reminder, four four Media is a journalist founded, it's supported by subscribers. If you wish to subscribe to four four Media and directly support our work, please go to four four media Co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You'll also get to listen to Subscribers only version. The subscribers Only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is made in partnership with Kaleidoscope. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast. That stuff really helps us out. This has been four four Media. We'll see you again next time.
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