Explorer, adventurer, author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker Robert Young Pelton is an iconoclast known for his entry into most of the world's conflict zones over the last twenty-five years. In the first half, he looked back on America's involvement in various conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq, and how those efforts backfired to some degree. Now, the Taliban is back in power, al Qaeda still exists, and Americans still are affected by the global jihad, like the recent Hamas attacks, he noted. Further, the US entanglements in the Middle East have reshaped the map of the world, "making it rife for either violent or terrorist groups," he lamented.
Regarding the savage ambush on Israel by Hamas, he believes they sought to destroy the planned normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. "The idea is to create something that is so horrific and unthinkable that people overreact, and then they become the terrorists," Pelton explained. In other words, "they start pounding women and children and houses and apartments. Suddenly they lose the moral high ground, and we [America] experienced that to a certain degree in Afghanistan and Iraq," where civilians were injured or killed during the fighting. He also addressed acts of "state-sponsored terrorism" and how Putin's regime uses terror and propaganda to maintain power.
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In the latter half, author and UFO researcher Chris Aubeck discussed the early history of flying saucers. In particular, he delved into Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting, which popularized the term "flying saucer," even though Arnold originally described the nine mysterious aerial craft he saw as "bat-shaped." His sighting occurred in Washington state while he was flying his private airplane, and because it was in the aftermath of WWII, he felt responsible for alerting the press about the advanced technology he witnessed. There was widespread public interest in his story, and Arnold became a kind of celebrity because of it, Aubeck detailed.
Arnold continued to have UFO sightings after the initial incident but his descriptions of them may have been influenced by his friendship with Ray Palmer, the editor of Amazing Stories, Aubeck suggested. He also talked about his research into other early UFO events as well as curious ancient occurrences. He recalled the story of Jane Lead, a 17th-century British mystic who wrote of experiences similar to modern-day alien abductions. She described seeing a UFO flying in the sky and "moments in which she was looking through her bedroom window, and suddenly she felt transported to a star in the sky where she finds herself in a large room surrounded by other people." Aubeck reported on a case from 1857 where a weird ship appeared over a village in Ohio, and the craft's occupants were said to be so large that they could be observed from the ground.
News segment guests: Howard Bloom, Mish Shedlock