Dolan's New USO Shockers
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This is Need to Know. Real talk about unidentified anomalous phenomena. From Australia, Ross Coulthart. From the US, Bryce Zabel. I want to talk about what we're talking about this week, which is we're going underwater. We always talk about unidentified anomalous phenomena without talking about its origins or in fact where it might be. And

We have a guest today who you and I have been dying to get on the show for years, Richard Dolan. Richard Dolan is by far and away the Mr. Ufology. He's the guy who when I first started researching my book In Plain Sight, I went to his two volume UFOs and the National Security State.

And I read in awe at the way that a historian, a properly trained historian like Richard, was able to bring such depth and insight to the UFO UAP story. Richard Dolan, come in and join us, sir. Welcome to Reality Check. I think you also wrote a book with Bryce called After Disclosure, which I

optimistically contemplates the possibilities of what happens when the government does finally step to the lectern and reveal all. How are you, sir? Very well. Happy to be here. Ross, Bryce, very glad to see both of you. Yeah, Bryce and I, as I seem to recall, did write a book a few years ago on that particular topic. And, you know, let me just say that was about 15 years ago. It was a different world, a different universe back then.

And there was an optimistic spin on that book, without a doubt. I recall back then my conception of disclosure was a bit of a paradox. I always believed it was impossible and inevitable. It was a bit of both. And, you know, I'll just one brief reminiscence. I mean, Bryce and I wrote that book in such a close collaboration in 2010, 2010, and it

You know, when I look back over that book to this day, it's very difficult to know, like, who wrote which paragraph, which sentence, because we really had a true collaboration there. And I feel like we tried to sit down like a think tank, not to make psychic-type predictions, but really to look at the society as it was, to look at the trends, to try to extrapolate how could disclosure happen?

And back then we were saying disclosure, not just transparency. How could it happen? And if it were to happen, and we played out a couple of scenarios how it might, but then if it were to happen, what next? How would it rock our world? And I still am of the belief that we got a lot more right than wrong. And fundamentally, I think we both concluded disclosure would truly rock our world.

You know, I just have to tell you, Ross, that Rich, you two guys actually represent two of the greatest collaborations I've had on the UFO topic. Both of you I've learned so much from. And Rich, what I have to say to you is I just remember first, I enjoyed the year where we would call each other out of nowhere and go, what do you think about? But I also fondly remember that you came to my house for 10 days and we literally tried to write things.

the lion's share of the book, actually get it down on a daily basis. That was a terrific thing. And just to follow up on your, it's impossible but inevitable, which I think is

to me, still as true as ever. And contrast that also with what I was arguing at the time, which is because of my, I guess, Hollywood background. I looked at UFO disclosure and said, it's either a slow dissolve or a hard cut, right? And clearly, it seems like we are currently in the slow dissolve. I never would have figured out that they actually would... It's almost like...

They planned this. I doubt they did, but it feels like a plan slow to dissolve. But I have to tell you guys, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, feels like we're about to have a hard cut. Ross should jump in here. You just had a heck of a story that you broke the other day.

The Schellenberger story, that was very interesting what Mike had to say. And I mean, you could make all sorts of jokes about immaculate constellation. I mean, I presume it's some kind of allusion to immaculate conception. And maybe it's an evangelical theme from some deeply committed Christian inside the Pentagon.

Or somebody did point out there's a rock band that did a song called Immaculate Constellation in 2023. I think it's anybody's guess what it means. It's a delightful name, though. And quite a few people I've spoken to inside the intelligence community say that it's a very unusual name for a codename.

I would like to make one observation about this. You know, when you look over the history of the UFO or UAP phenomenon, go right back to the 1940s and 50s when it first became publicly discussed in our world. There have always been.

individuals and organized groups who have been fighting for what we would call disclosure. I mean, even back in the 1950s, there were such attempts, the 1960s and 70s and 80s, all through the 20th century and into the early 21st century. It never stopped.

But they were always stopped in their tracks, as it were, each time. And there's something different now. And I was thinking about this, asking myself, what is different? And I think what is different is that the spigot, the volume of UAP revelations now, it has gained a kind of traction.

that is vastly more profound than it's ever been. The resistance is every bit as intransigent as it has been in the past. And indeed, on the Immaculate Consolation story, we have more denials from the Pentagon. Nothing is new. But the fact is that if we see ourselves as the offense,

It's like we got a couple of, we got a new quarterback, a couple of new receivers and a better front line. And we're just pushing a lot harder than we used to. And I think that is the difference. They are the same. That is the establishment is as intransigent as before, but the offense that is the disclosure group, I think has, I don't know. I think we've got more players. We've got more information, more sources coming in and it's becoming more

much more of a game now. People are breaking. I'm sorry, Russ, go ahead. No, no. I was going to make a segue to you, Bryce, because I know you've had a very interesting trip in the last week, and I think it's a good segue to what we want to talk about today with Richard. Why don't you tell us what you're talking about? I

I will. Just to follow up, Rich, you're so right. Besides Immaculate Constellation, which I have to say every time I try to pitch it to somebody and explain it, I have to go Immaculate Constellation. I'm sure I'll get used to it. If it's the real deal, I'll get used to it. But we have so many other things coming out. We have the program coming up with James Foxx.

George Knapp just announced a couple of days ago, he has, I think, a 10-part series coming up on Netflix where he's claiming he's got some Navy video, I think, of something either going into the water or coming out of the water. We've got more hearings coming up. And, of course, the reason, among many reasons, you're here, Rich, is because you're working on a book about USOs, the submerged vehicles we're talking about, the transmedium vehicles.

which is interesting because the first time I ever heard about Shag Harbor was frankly, Rich, reading your book. And I think the first edition of your first book. And I thought it was very interesting because, you know, the water...

phenomenon of this has been historically underrepresented. And so, I got to speak at Shag Harbor a couple of weeks ago, I guess. Went there and road tripped around the Halifax area up to Shag Harbor with my wife and daughter and her friend. Had a good time, but got to go to the location, got to talk to a bunch of people there. And I just

think it's just one of one story out of many. And I wanted before we even we don't have to talk much about Shag Harbor, because I want to talk about what you're discovering. You set out to research one book and you told me a shocking fact the other day, but I'm going to let you explain it. Oh, sure. Well, I can't remember what fact. Well, no, you told me that you're writing three of them now. You found some. That's correct. Yeah. This is a three volume book.

study. I can't because it's well over a thousand pages of narrative and text. Tell us what a USO is though. Let's bring our audience up to speed here. We call them UFOs, but then they became UAP. Does the term UAP include USO? And if so, tell us what a USO is and your vision.

Well, UAP now can include it because all of our acronyms have gone through changes as to what they actually mean. So UAP once upon a time, I think, was unidentified aerial phenomena, but now it's unidentified anomalous phenomena. So that can include the water as well as atmosphere, as well as space. So UAP works pretty well for that, I guess.

USO, that also has gone through many different permutations as to what it actually stands for. But I think today we've got unidentified submerged objects that work. Once it was an unidentified submarine object, believe it or not. It had all kinds of different acronyms as well. The point is that

the water-based aspect of this phenomenon goes back as far as I can see, it goes back several centuries. And it is every bit as fascinating and let me just say mind-blowing as the aerial aspect of this phenomenon, maybe more so because when you come across account after account, whether in the 19th century or all through the 20th and 21st centuries of objects emerging from the center of an ocean,

I mean, just absolutely causing panic and trauma and shock to the witnesses. It's incredible. And what I've collected now, 672. I thought it was 671, but I just added my final one, I think. 672 USO incidents. The earliest one that I've included is from the year 1717. There are probably earlier ones. The thing is, when I go through some of the earliest ones,

stories, I don't really find them all that persuasive to me. I have a couple of cases where I talk about them. A lot of people wonder about the Christopher Columbus sighting. I have a few things to say about that, but I don't include that as an official case. But from 1717 up to 2024, this year, I've collected 672 of these incidents.

Most of them, I would say 71% of them are transmedium, that is objects emerging or entering a body of water. A large number of these are just below the water.

I included a few cases as well of objects very, very low over a body of water, not necessarily observed in the water, but I had my reasons for including them. If you're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and there's an object 20 feet above the water and it's performing acrobatics around a Navy vessel, I thought we could include that. So there's a few of objects that are low above the water.

But it's a fascinating phenomenon for sure. If it includes objects above the water, would that include the Nimitz case then, for example? Is that one of your 672? Well, it certainly is. And I think that there's a very strong argument to make that there was an object below the water in the Nimitz case. And I have a lot to say about that, in fact. So that's been disputed.

Not everyone agrees with that. I mean, I know that, for example, David Fravor has not said, oh, no, there was an object below. However, there are other people who have said that there is an object below the water. And I think that it's a reasonable case that one can make.

Let's get into the nitty gritty of some of the historical cases, Richard. I'm really interested in a case in Japan where fishermen in a local village described a beautiful woman arriving on a beach in some kind of obvious craft. And she spoke a different language from them. But it is quite a compelling account. Do you know the one I'm talking about? RICHARD GARRETT: I do, yes. I have not included that as an official case.

I look at that as a bit more of a mythological legend type of a case. I believe that was from 1803, 1804. You know, it's not too late for me to include a write-up of it just to discuss. I think it probably would be worthwhile, despite the fact that I'm hoping to get these volumes out starting next month. But we shall see. Hey, Rich? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.

Well, one way to kind of bring the audience into this would be to say, do you have one case that has not only excited you because you think it's a really good case, but that has all the necessary bells and whistles to actually make it feel like a piece of valid history so that your best case where people can't say,

Well, I mean, that could be explained by X, Y, or Z. Give us a great case that you just love. Absolutely. Well, one thing I did in the last few months is I – by the way, Ross, I'm really sorry to have to say that about the Japanese people. I don't want to do that to you.

That's what I respect about you, Richard, is that you are a rigorous historian. And I mean, I'm not just saying this to be nice to you. One of the things I admire about your books is you're quite ruthless with excising things that are speculative or mythical that haven't got any basis with corroboration. And that's what I really admire, particularly about your UFOs and National Security State. It really should be a set text.

Thank you. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. Well, what I'll just say to answer your question, Bryce, is that toward the end of this project, I created what I would call evidence ratings. So I went through each one of the 672 cases and I created my own criteria for what makes a case stronger or weaker.

Some of the cases we can consider, they don't have as much evidence. It could be secondhand. It could be many years after the fact. It's not inherently a strong case. Could very well be true. I think I wouldn't have included any case in this collection if I didn't think it probably happened. But having said that, there are some cases where on my scale of 2 to 12, that's the least of the strongest, I've got a number that are 12, which I would say are certain.

I'm looking at one right in front of me from 1964. It's an Australian case. Ross, you might find it interesting near the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia's Northern Territory on January 23rd of 1964. It's a case that was written about actually years ago by the author Ivan Sanderson, who wrote an early USO book in 1970. It was investigated by the Australian Air Force Intelligence. It involves a vessel called the Llewellyn M-2.

near a place called Groote Elant in the Northern Territory by the Gulf of Carpentaria. I've never been there. I've been to Australia once or twice. The description of the case is a little bit convoluted, but the crew encountered large pulsating lights in the water that rotated. That's a phenomenon that goes way back. What makes this case different is that there was not simply an extraordinary bioluminescence, but it

it had a magnetic effect on the ship's compass, which makes this type of phenomenon very, very interesting. The Australian Air Force Intelligence investigated, it was looked into in great detail by Bill Chalker, a great Australian UFO researcher as well. He actually noted that this was the first officially unknown listed in the RAAF Directorate of Air Force Intelligence.

It's not super dramatic, but you had this ship out there and they encountered this bioluminescence that completely screwed with their compass setting. It wasn't a sighting of a craft, but it was quite interesting. I wasn't expecting to answer the absolute certain cases, but one that I would say, Shag Harbor is one, Bryce. You know what? I'd love to hear your

updated take on that. And if I, if I've heard something different, I'll, I'll throw it out there from, uh, going there with the author of this book, but go ahead. Yeah, sure. Uh,

Well, Shag Harbor, that's, uh, I don't have any of my notes in front of me on this, but I could probably pull them. You know what? Let me, let me just set the basic stage though. It's, it happened 57 years ago this week. October 67. Yeah. October 4th, uh, 67. And people saw this thing in the sky for days, actually in advance, they kept seeing things with these four lights trailing. And then one day, one night, a number of people see it go into the water off of the bay. And, uh,

They actually searched for it for two days. The Canadian government and other actors looked for it for two days. There was froth on the sea. And the part of it that I'm wondering if you have nailed down anymore was...

If it was just that, then you sort of go, well, they couldn't find anything. Yet there were people that said they saw something under the water. Okay. But then later, apparently, there were a couple of witnesses that saw something emerge from the water a couple days later near what was a U.S.-Canadian base. Is that all accurate according to what you know? Chris Stiles and Don Ledger are the two researchers who really dug into this. Chris Stiles, of course, is still very active with this.

That's what we meant. That's right. And so you have an object that many people are seeing at night. It's coming into the water right off the coast there.

And you had Canadian divers immediately going in because the question was, did an aircraft go down? And is this a rescue? We have a search and rescue thing happening here. The weird thing about it, though, is that you had U.S. Navy and you had Soviet Navy in the distance watching this whole thing very carefully. We know this for sure. And there were—

Forgive me for interrupting, Richard. I find that a really interesting point. So were the Soviets just normally watching that US military base? Or had they come, do you think, specifically to respond to this particular incident? The Soviets were always around in the area. The Soviet Navy was very active in the northern Atlantic.

as I have no doubt the Russian Navy continues to be. Soviet Navy was very, very active up there. So on one level you could say, well, they're just there, but no, they were clearly positioned

as close as they could safely be while the U.S. and the Canadians were doing their thing there. What Chris Stiles and Don Ledger determined in their own investigation after the fact is they did speak to witnesses who stated, actually it was more than a few days, I think it was almost a week later if I remember correctly, who observed an object ascending

out of the water and rapidly flying off toward an area, toward the Gulf of Maine, as they call it over there. There were Soviet submarines in the area that were escorted away, or at least one Soviet submarine was escorted away. So what it looks like is that this was an attempt to corner, capture a USO. By the way, along those lines, there is something new that I think I can offer.

This is a communication I received privately from one individual. It's a secondhand story, so take it for what it's worth. But he spoke to a gentleman who was assigned to the submarine, the USS Nautilus. That's the first nuclear submarine in history. The Nautilus...

did go through a refitting and upgrade in the mid-1960s, that is known. What this gentleman was told is that the Nautilus, part of its upgrading was a larger external hatch door that could accommodate a retrieved craft of under the water up to a certain size. And that, according to what this man was told,

The craft, the Nautilus in the late 60s actually acquired several of these such craft. I don't know how many. Unconfirmed, I cannot confirm it. But it did come to me from someone who I did have a very lengthy correspondence with who I think had very good reason to repeat what he did. So it just, the Nautilus would have very likely been in that area at that time.

It's such an interesting case, but I wanted to just tell you the one little thing that stood out to me from going there. We ended up talking to one of the witnesses that saw it go into the water, the primary group of witnesses. There were some high school kids that were out for the night when they saw this thing, and they tracked it for quite a while. This guy is now a much older man, and I wish I could remember his name, but I'm not pulling it out right now.

Here's the interesting thing. So they all see this thing. It's definitely anomalous. I mean, they don't know what it is. So they call in to the local police and say, this is what we're seeing. And the first thing that the police officer says is, have you guys been drinking? Yeah. Okay. And then...

People start calling into the police station. This guy calls back in and the police officer actually, to his credit, says, I believe you. Right. And I just thought this is a phenomenon of its own, which is if you remember back to the O'Hare case from Chicago in 2006.

When this person calls in, they're seeing a craft over O'Hare Airport, calls it in. And the first person, the first thing the person says that she calls it into is to chuckle and say, have you been drinking? Are you drunk? And the only thing that I always think when I hear that reaction is, to the best of my knowledge, people that drink too much go to sleep.

right? They don't hallucinate. Alcohol is not usually a hallucinatory drug. So it's just, it's just this part of the denial and ridicule that's caught on over the years. And I just wondered, this may expand out of USS, but just for, because I know you're so widely read on this, Rich, have you come across a number of cases where people blame it on drinking?

Not in the cases – I mean in the history of the UFO, UAP phenomenon, yeah, absolutely that – you get a lot of those types of comments. They would appear in the newspapers as a joke and things like this. But really in – when I look at the serious research either conducted by private organizations or the old Project Blue Book –

I really didn't. I have not come across that. Of course. And let's face it. A lot of these sightings are U.S. Navy personnel standing on the deck of ships looking up at things flying around their ship. So they're not drinking. So anyway, I just found it a kind of a unique moment in that story because I

the first thing they had to do is overcome the resistance of their own local police department to even get them to pay attention to it. But then by the end of the night, even the police were saying, you know, send us everything you got. The police are rolling down there to investigate it. Yeah, no, exactly. I want to add a couple of things here. So I've got a couple of, I've got great recent cases that I would love to talk about. But before I even do that, I would like to emphasize that

that when I started going through, I created a very large spreadsheet, which I've never done spreadsheets before. But this was a spreadsheet that included data on every single case that's included in the study. And it's got about 15 to 20 data points per case. So like, how large was the object? Do I call it small, medium, or large based on

What color was it? What shape was it? What was it doing with the water? Was it entering, coming out of the water? Was it a military case? Were there electromagnetic effects associated with it? Very important. Was it in the daytime? Was it at night? And so forth. So I have all of this data quantified. And it wasn't until I put all of this data together that I could see certain very critically important things

elements to this that I would never have seen. I'll give you one example, daytime versus nighttime. You would think, wow, what a simple thing. All that I did is I didn't write the exact time for all of these down. It would be too much data. But I did write in my spreadsheet, was it in daylight or at nighttime? There are some cases where it's not known, and so I would call that unknown. But by and large, you're able to determine was it in the daytime or not. And

What I saw was actually rather shocking. So up until the late 1960s, actually 1968 to be exact, it was almost exactly 50-50, daytime versus night. So it's almost like you could roll the dice and whatever it would be, daytime, nighttime. After 1968, they go to 75% at night. It's like someone flipped a switch. And not only that,

But even in the early period, there was always a difference when it concerned military encounters. So military encounters have always been far more likely to occur with USOs at night. Since the late 60s, military encounters are nearly 90% at night. It's really shocking. So to me, that says a couple of things. One, we're dealing with intentional behavior,

We're dealing with, this is not natural phenomenon. In other words, I can't see that. If it were all, if it were 50-50, rather, if it were fully natural phenomenon, you would think it could occur at random times. And that is not what we are seeing. Even in the early period, military encounters were far more likely to occur at night. And then after 1968, all encounters are far more likely to occur at night.

It's very interesting to me. And again, that sounds intentional. That doesn't sound as a random occurrence. There's a few other things like that that make me think that the data I'm getting is probably accurate. I'll give you one more. This has to do with electromagnetic effects. So the first EM case that I have for USOs, there may be early ones, but the earliest one I found is from 1951. So starting in 1951, going to the present day,

9.6 of all of my cases that I've collected have electromagnetic effects, about one out of 10. However, if it's a military case, the likelihood of an EM effect is almost double. And in the very few cases, but there are enough, where there is missing time reported in a USO incident, and that does happen in a few cases, where there's missing time, those instances, they are four times as likely to report electromagnetic effects.

And again, I cannot see that as a random occurrence.

Can I ask, Richard, one of the phenomena that I find very interesting about USOs, underwater submerged objects, is the constant or frequent description by witnesses that when the object goes from air into water, it doesn't appear to displace the water as you would expect if such a large object hit the water. Is that a common feature of what you hear reported by witnesses?

Absolutely, Ross. Absolutely, yes. There are cases, however, I will just add, where a USO is seen making a splash, so to speak, as it enters the water and sometimes causing a ruckus in the water as it comes out. But frequently, you do get this statement from witnesses that

Sometimes it's almost as if the water opened up around the craft as it entered. And often you would get the statement that it would not make a splash. One of the great researchers in this area, who's unfortunately no longer with us, was Carl Feindt, F-E-I-N-D-T. Carl just died about five years ago. He was in his 80s. He did great work. He wrote a book called "UFOs and Water"-- "Water and UFOs," excuse me. It's a great book.

And he did a lot of thinking on this matter. And I think, in fact, his biggest interest was to understand the relationship technologically between these UFOs, UAP, and water.

And he believed that this had to do with the ionization effect around the craft, the creation of a kind of field around the craft that would sort of open things up. There's something Lou Elizondo talked about recently in his book, "Immanent," particularly some of the statements he attributed to Hal Puttoff. You get the same type of thinking going along here, this creation of a field around the craft that somehow

maybe pushes the water out of the way in some manner that, you know, if you've studied this enough, if you're a scientist, I guess it makes sense. It's a little bit above my pay grade, but that does appear to be a major element of the phenomenon.

If we're talking about Elizondo for a moment, what is your take on the case? Do you include the case that he talks about in his book, Eminent, which apparently is something that was described as the size of a small island that was dark as the devil or something like that? And a cruise missile was being retrieved by a helicopter that was hovering over it with a frogman down to get it. And he freaks out, they pull him back up.

this island sinks into the water and takes the missile with it. Is that, I do have that. Yes, I do. That was actually, I think that was the exact same case that Fravor mentioned on the Joe Rogan podcast a couple of years ago. I'm not, unless I'm getting the cases mixed up mid 1990s off the coast of, uh, Eastern Puerto Rico near Roosevelt roads, that Naval base major installation there. Uh, I believe that is the case. Lou is talking about an imminent where, uh,

Yeah, there's some retrieval of a missile, correct? And there is something down there. Puerto Rico is really the king of USO activity.

I think it must be said. I've plotted on my Google Earth with little yellow pins every single USO incident that I've recorded. And Puerto Rico is just covered in yellow pins, particularly the northern coast as you get up toward the Puerto Rico trench there. It's very deep. A lot of activity there. And on the eastern and western coasts as well, there's just tremendous amount of activity, more than Catalina Island.

um, and, uh, more than any other place that I could sing. You just said something is down there. I have to ask a question for my wife, Jackie, who you've, you've met. Uh, she and I, uh, wrote the first pass on the Atlantis movie for Disney. So we were studying up on Atlantis and she said, ask him if what he's saying, if he's talking about what's down there, you know, do you have a working theory of who's down there? Is there, are we talking about

a civilization in the water that we don't know about? In other words, what is a good working theory that explains what's down there? Yeah, great. I'm glad you asked this. Yes, I think that there's an intelligent presence in the waters. And I think that, think of it this way. If you were to posit that there's another intelligence that's here, I mean, after all, what are these UAPs?

We dance around the obvious question all the time, particularly today. No one wants to get into this, even though we're talking about acquisition of exotic technology and non-human crap. But we're really, you do not hear anywhere the true deep implications of what this means. And what it means is that

Another intelligence and species is living here. They're activated and they're working here. Are they from here originally? Don't know. Have they been here a long time? Yes. Now, how active has that been throughout the millennia? My own personal theory is that in ancient times it was

probably real. I do think most of the so-called ancient evidence that people point out is pretty weak. But I do think some of it is legitimate, and I do think that we've probably been monitored, observed for a long time. But something changed a couple of centuries ago when our species

Well, we got the fire of Prometheus, so to speak. We discovered science. And it has vaulted us into a completely different form of civilization and a different form of society. And I believe this is what has gotten the attention of others who realize they've probably gone through the same process that we're going through now, a kind of exponential

you know, rocket ship straight up in terms of our technology and capabilities. I mean, you think about it. But thousands of years, we were essentially moving along at a very slow pace and then suddenly boom. So I think that's what triggered a much more intensive observation. This is my own opinion. And where else would be a more stable place for them to be? Well, the oceans are actually a very secure area. I listened to Kevin Newth talk about this recently.

About a year ago, he did an interview, and he sounded very, very logical here. There's a lot of protection in the water. There's temperature fluctuation protections. There's radiation protection. If you've got the technology to establish a presence under the water, it might be the best and safest place to be, particularly with an assertive, intelligent, above-ground species such as humanity nosing around ever more. You want to probably hold back and not get too much in their face.

Richard, there's a former US Coast Guard, former head of NOAA, Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, who is a friend of the show and a very honourable and decent man. And he's had the courage to speak out about the issue of underwater submerged objects. And he's actually pointed to an anomalous feature just off the coast of California, very near Bryce's front doorstep. And I'm just wondering whether you've got into that at all.

The Malibu structure, I assume you mean? Yeah. I've spoken with Admiral Tim about this as well, and I agree with what you say about him. Well, the thing is, I have a piece that I've written about it. I don't consider that a sure USO bit of evidence until we get an ROV down there, which no one has done, to my understanding. We've not gotten

It's several thousand feet below the water. It's down there. This is not in shallow water. And it's quite large, and it's very interesting. No question about it. I think we just need to get more data about this. And I think, as far as I understand, that is Tim Gallaudet's position as well. We need an ROV. And I'm surprised, frankly, that we haven't done so. But probably getting something down to that depth may not

be as easy as everyone says. Oh yeah, we'll just send something down there. The ocean is still very treacherous. It's still very difficult.

But I would like to see what happens when we get something in much more detail down there. It is interesting. I will speak while Ross sneezes there. What I thought, Ross, where I thought you were going is you were going to say, what about this Catalina concentration of stuff? Because, Ross, remember on the very first show we did with Ben Hanson, he was talking about

Catalina being kind of a hotbed like Puerto Rico. Is it the same kind of situation or would you characterize what's going on in the Catalina area as different than what you've seen in the Puerto Rico area? No, it's not that different. I think it's quite similar, frankly. More of the cases are, I was going to say more civilian, but I don't know about that. There's a lot of activity out by Catalina Island, absolutely.

And it's the same type of thing. You see objects emerging from the water, you see objects entering, and a lot of strange activity below the water reported by folks. There's one, I can't remember the date, it's in the 21st century. Family is boat, shipping, boating, recreational boating. They're toward Catalina Island, it's getting toward night. And they look below and there's this large rectangular light that is directly below them.

that's moving in all of these unusual, bizarre ways. It doesn't emerge from the surface, but it's scared the hell out of them. I think they stopped. They never sailed again after that. I don't know if Elizondo said this, or I'm remembering it from another source, but I'd like you to comment on the speed that

we think these things can go. Because we know that the things in the air are going at impossible speeds compared to what our current technology is.

Can you compare any cases where, first of all, I'm not sure exactly how fast a nuclear submarine can go. Is it 25 knots or something like that? I think, well, they don't give you the official number, but I think more like 40. Maybe 40 knots. So do we have any sense of how fast some of these USOs might be going? Much faster. Much faster.

Now, an undersea missile torpedo can go faster than 45 knots. I think the highest speed might be certainly more than 100 knots, maybe approaching 200 knots for a very fast torpedo. There are USOs that have been allegedly reported much faster than that.

Now, none of them in the realm of what Lou would call hypersonic that I'm aware of, but pretty darn fast, hundreds. There was an allegation, I remember, from the former head of the French DGSA, the French Overseas External Secret Service, who did an interview with French media after he'd left the service. And he was, I think from memory, he said that there were USOs recorded moving faster than the speed of sound in air in water.

It's possible. You know, the cases that I've gotten, it's not as though I can get a confirmed FOIA where someone says, yes, it was traveling at a thousand knots. But there are some testimony from Navy witnesses that certainly indicated these things were moving incredibly fast, as fast as an aircraft, except that it was under the water.

But whether they're moving at what we would call supersonic or hypersonic speed, anything like that, I can't say for sure, but I would not rule it out. They've got a way of creating a kind of cavitation around them, I think, where the water is not providing the same level of friction and resistance that you would ordinarily get. And I think that's the key to it. But still, I suspect, I sense...

that they're not moving as fast ordinarily as aircraft or as UFOs above the, you know, in the atmosphere. I don't think so. I suspect because even though they can create this well around them, the water is still causing a certain level of resistance. That's the impression I get, but...

They can move really fast below the water. There's a pretty well-known case, which I've included by Mark, talked about by Mark D'Antonio, who's very prominent in MUFON. Mark talked about an experience he had on a U.S. Navy submarine. He's not even given the date, but I suspect it was in the mid to late 90s, where he was honored, he was a guest, and he's

fighting off seasickness and he's sitting by the sonar operator and he overhears a discussion about a fast mover that they were tracking moving several hundred knots and then he received a firm talking to you by the XO to the effect of are you having a good time here Mr. D'Antonio? Yes sir. You want to keep it that way? Yes sir. Don't say anything. That type of thing. So

So I think, yeah, the U.S. Navy and certainly the Russian and Soviet Navy encountered a lot of these things. I've encountered many of these. I want to follow up on that Navy comment. Something I've talked to both you gentlemen about is, you know, back when I did the NBC series Dark Skies, we said that the controlling group behind it was run by the U.S. Navy, not the Air Force.

And also without getting into that story, somebody did approach us who said they were from the Navy and wanted to sort of have their input into our series. That's another story.

But Ross and I have discussed several times on this show the sort of the yin and the yang of the Navy versus the Air Force. The Air Force seems to be fully committed to dragging their feet on this thing, on transparency, if you will. But the Navy seems to have led the way, at least initially, in being a little more open about it.

At least that's my take. I'd like to know if that's your take, if you see a difference between these two branches, and if you actually think that either branch, Navy or Air Force, actually is in control of the U.S. response and investigation.

Well, may I jump in on that then? I guess there's always been rivalry. Go back to the 1950s. There was a rivalry between the Air Force and the Navy back then over the UFO issue, over nuclear weapons issues, over a lot of things. Navy was jealous of the Air Force's new prominence during the 1950s. And it actually caused something back then called the Revolt of the Admirals, an interesting little historical fact. As you move forward, you see that Navy and Air Force

have not always seen eye to eye in terms of managing their own UAP UFO data. I think that is true. As far as today, though, I would...

I don't know that I would say the Navy as an institution is any more transparency or disclosure oriented than the Air Force. What I would say is that you've got a factional war that is taking place within the structure of the U.S. military establishment that, yes, is being led by a number of Navy officers and Navy men. But I don't know that that's the same thing as saying,

that the Navy as an institution is leading the charge. And it's not all Navy. You know, Lou Elizondo is a U.S. Army. But the Air Force, in my own interactions with Navy and Air Force people, I have to agree, like, I've gotten vastly more and better UFO, UAP stories from Navy personnel than Air Force. Air Force people are very tight-lipped. So there's something maybe culturally going on there. But what I think is that

Institutionally, both of those services are not interested in giving up more than is necessary. And it's a battle. I think we're looking at something of an insurgency that has gained more strength over the last few years. There's always been such an insurgency over the decades and generations. It's always been there. And I think it's much stronger now.

Can I ask you, Richard, can I go slightly off piste from the underwater submerged objects issue? Because I really like your take on the broader issue of what's happening at the moment. I'm

very sceptical, increasingly sceptical that there's going to be any kind of formal disclosure by government unless they're forced to their hand by simple citizen activism and investigation. Do you agree? I mean, hearing you talk about the US Navy makes me even think that even more strongly. Do you think there's any likelihood at all from what you're hearing that Washington's ever going to make a formal admission

I think disclosure will have to come out of their cold, dead fingers. I don't think that there's any desire. And look, you know, the UAP Disclosure Act was knocked down for a second year in a row, really knocked down. I mean, even worse than last year. So is Congress even going to be useful on this matter moving forward? You really have to ask this question. Maybe. There are some members of Congress who seem to care, but

How much influence and power do they have? How much access to data do they have? It doesn't look like they have all the access that they want or are probably legally entitled to. So then it goes thrown to the executive branch. No matter who wins the election, whether Trump or Kamala Harris,

I have a very difficult time seeing either of those individuals promoting UFO, UAP disclosure at all. And there's too much to lose. The United States is in a very, very bad way. It lost the proxy war in Ukraine. That's clearly gone sideways for them in a way that they'd never have expected. You've got a lot of dissension in the ranks over that, which is almost never discussed in this country because it's not allowed to be talked about.

There's a lot of unhappiness over the declining United States empire. This must be taken into consideration. So I think there's this sense of needing to clutch onto power as much as possible. And I think the national security establishment, they know full well to give this secret up, which has been held now for 80 plus years,

Who is exposed? What are the dangers? Well, there's a few dangers. A, we're in a new Cold War that is much more intense than even the old Cold War. So if you acknowledge that this is real, you're half of a step away from acknowledging you've acquired exotic technology. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be harder to hide that tech, but it probably will make it harder. It's easier to hide the tech if you just don't acknowledge anything.

And all of this is being weaponized. I think the whole goal of the retrieval program, at least the main goal, is to weaponize it and also maybe make some money out of it. But they want to weaponize it. So I don't really see a big motivation for wanting to give this up. It'll be given up only if they are forced. This is something Bryce and I talked about 15 years ago. If they are forced--

They'll do it, and only as much as they're able to. So I'm with you on this one, Ross. I don't think that we're likely to see disclosure. I did a piece earlier this year on my channel basically saying, I think in July, not long ago, why disclosure will not happen in 2024.

Not just because it's an election year, because that's a good enough reason right off the bat, but just they're never going to be prepared. There's never going to be a time where the powers who are in control of this secret will say, oh, yes, let's share this now with the world. We're not exposed. There's nothing to worry about. There's been no criminality and illegality here. There's not going to be a hit to our credibility here.

I mean, we're in an era where you're not supposed to believe in conspiracies anymore. I mean, none. So what happens when the president says, I don't believe in conspiracy? Well, this one, OK, believe in this one. It's the biggest one of all time. But don't believe in any others. Like, that's not a good look for them. So I think we can probably rule out voluntary disclosure. With one caveat, I will say this. And I know we're running low on time.

We are, this is me, forgive me for going in this direction. We are definitely, clearly, obviously moving in a direction of a globally orchestrated digital totalitarian system. How else can we put this? Panopticon, 24-7 surveillance, management, control of the population for a lot of reasons.

AI, yes, that's one reason. Mass dislocation of employment, yes, that's a reason. All of these reasons. So we're in an era where we are looking at an encroaching police state all around us, less and less wiggle room for freedom. When Bryce and I wrote After Disclosure, it was a different world even then, totally different world, very different now. So in that world,

I would theorize that if the establishment is ever confident enough

that they can control this narrative completely and push out alternative narratives like yours, Bryce, and yours, Ross, from the work that you guys are doing, and mine, and other alternative researchers. They can push people like us to the side and effectively silence us. Then there would be possibly a very clearly controlled narrative rolled out. Because at some point, you do want to update the cover-up.

You have to make it credible. It's got to be believable. And too much toothpaste has come out of the tube, as one insider told me years ago. And so, yes, you might have to make concessions to some of the new realities, but you do everything possible to control that. A, you do not ever acknowledge conspiracy and cover up ever. So what do you do? You do what they're doing now, which is, well, there seems to be something interesting out there. We'll look into it and get back to you.

And they'll do that for the next 10, 20, 50, 100 years if they can. They'll drag that out as long as possible, pretending that they really don't know what this is any more than we do, which is a lie.

So I think that's the game they're playing. And if they are forced to give up something, they will give up as little as possible for as long as possible. That's my current take on disclosure. That's a profound take. I remember, by the way, Rich, that back when you and I did write that book, neither one of us had a gray hair on our head. So it's been a while. I guess I just want to get to a summation here in some respects. You just laid out a

a pretty tough situation from your own point of view and about how they'll, they'll disclose over their own dead bodies. You know, it'll be that hard. It'll be that consistently fought.

How do you keep going writing a three-part book series about USOs if you think it's going to be so hard? I mean, you must think in your heart of hearts that by doing this, you are leading toward at least some form of confirmation, whether it's governmental or something else. So I'm just kind of asking you to share your own feelings about this.

about your work. To give us a wrap-up, also tell us what your timeline is for when the books start rolling out.

I do this because I want to. I do this because I'm personally fascinated by it. And I, you know, whether it's 30 years ago or today, I'm trying to satisfy my own curiosity. That's honestly my journey. And if there are other people who want to come along for the ride and say, wow, I like what he has to say, wonderful, join me. And I'm happy to share what I've learned.

I know when I started doing this in the 1990s, I did allow myself, I will admit this naively, to entertain the idea that maybe what I do will be the sledgehammer that cracks open the wall of secrecy. I did allow myself that fantasy for a while in the 90s. I don't entertain that. I think that there will be

I think that it will be impossible to hide this secret forever. So I do think something's going to give, just like the song says, something's got to give. But when and how and how much, this is something I don't know. But I don't personally invest my own value as a researcher into whether or not we succeed with full disclosure. I would like for that to happen. I think that would be a good thing. But I can tell you, this is not what

I'm expecting any time in the near future. And it's not my motivation. My motivation is always to satisfy my own historical questions, my own research curiosity, and to move forward from there. But I will just point out, as I said earlier in this chat, the pro-UFO UAP side of it has the strongest offense that it's ever had. We're in a better place, I think,

in terms of the number of people who are really working hard on this, who are obtaining good information and putting it out to the public. That's important. So as difficult as the task is, I would say that we're in a better place as researchers and as activists than we have been in the past. So it makes the future that much more interesting and the stakes that much higher. Okay, you got to give us the timetable and the title of the book.

Yeah, I've called it, I have it right here, A History of USOs. Hold on, I want to open up. I just retitled it just recently, and I'm going to announce it right here. Probably the first time. A History of USOs, Anomalous Objects in Bodies of Water Around the World. And it will be in three volumes. Volume one is...

will hopefully be released about in one month from now. The subsequent volumes will be shortly, very shortly after that. It's all been written. So, but I can't,

It's too much to do them all at once. So it'll be volume one, and then a month or two later, volume two, and then a month or two later, volume three. So by early 2025, I think they'll all be out. The first volume covers from the beginning to 1969. The second volume will cover all of the 1970s and all of the 1980s, a very, very active time, very active. And then volume three will cover 1990 to the present day. All right. Ross, why don't you take us out of here?

Well, we're excited, Richard. And can I say I'm looking forward to it. I'll put a pre-booking in for the three-volume set. And I recommend it all to our viewers as well. Richard Dolan, thank you so much for joining us. I sincerely hope that with the election in the offing, probably by the time we come back, there will be an election result. And I wonder, I just wonder how much that might affect the chances of what we've been discussing.

whether there might be either political candidate feeling willing to be more open after an election result. I somehow doubt it. I think you're right. Richard Dolan, thank you so much for joining Need to Know. It was my pleasure, gentlemen. Thank you so much for having me here. Thank you, my friend.