 Welcome to Dare to Dream, this is Debbie Daschinger. Today's show features the amazing Nick Pope. Nick is one of the world's leading experts on UFOs, the unexplained and conspiracy theories. Dare to Dream podcast has won the COVR Award for Best Radio and Podcast Show. It is listed in Welp Magazine as one of the top 20 best podcasts to listen to and its high-ranking self-improvement under Apple Podcasts, nominated for two People's Choice Podcast Awards and for a Webby Award. The show is sponsored by Dr. Dane Heer and Access Consciousness. They do beautiful energy work out into the world and if you'd like to become a facilitator or take one of their classes, go to drdaneheer.com. I'm Debbie Daschinger, I'm a media visibility specialist, specifically I am a book writing coach. I've got a Zoom that you can join from anywhere in the world so that you complete your book and get it published. We meet twice a month. Also, I've got a separate company that takes books to guaranteed international best-selling status. And finally, I run a boutique agency for a handful of clients that I get booked on radio and podcast. If you're a spiritual messenger and you'd like to learn how you can be interviewed on podcasts, I've got some gifts for you and some beautiful templates so you can get started right away, my gift to you. Go to debbiedaschinger.com slash gift. That's D-E-B-B-I-D-A-C-H-I-N-G-E-R.com slash gift. My guest, Nick Pope, worked for the UK Ministry of Defense investigating UFOs and other mysteries officially for the British government leading the media to call him the real Fox Mulder. Because of Nick's work on these real-life X-Files, he has worked as a consultant or spokesperson on numerous UFO and alien-themed movies, TV series, and video games. Nick is a regular contributor to various TV news shows and documentaries, including Ancient Aliens, The Basement Office, and After Contact, the latter of which he created and hosts. Nick moderates Ancient Aliens Live, a touring event based on the successful TV series. And if you'd like to learn more about him, you can go to nickhope.net. And with that, I welcome Nick Pope to Dare to Dream. It is wonderful to have you, welcome. Thank you very much, Debbie. Great to be on your show. Yeah, I recently got back from Mexico City. I spoke at the UFOlogy World Congress event, and I went to hear the Bolivian author, researcher, and mystical archaeologist Antonio Portugal Alvisuri. He was also a fellow presenter. And during his presentation, Antonio showed photos of some very notable people, and he had a picture of you. And I was so excited to see you up there with him. I spoke to him after. He was a beautiful individual. He is, and what a great story. And he said that the two of you are friends. And I thought, what a small world. So I put in a hello from Antonio. Well, that's great. Yes, as you say, small world. I believe that I first met him in Barcelona, actually, at a previous World UFOlogy Congress event. And so, yeah, it's always great when you make these connections and get reminded of them. So, yeah, lots of amazing things happening right now. Yeah, lots of amazing things and lots of amazing people speaking up. I love that we can have this conversation and it truly is becoming more and more mainstream and accepted. I wanna start with who you were growing up. Were UFOs something you were aware of or interested in growing up? Were you a sci-fi fan? Was there somehow in your DNA? Well, it's interesting. Actually, it wasn't. I really fell into this subject almost by accident or some would say perhaps, you know, synchronicity, I guess. But no, I had no childhood interest in UFOs. I've never seen one myself. I think I did like science fiction, but not to the extent of excluding all else. I guess as a child, I'd seen close encounters of the third kind like most people had. And I had read a couple of the classic books such as the H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, things like that. But I'd read other classics too. So not just science fiction. No, my first involvement with the subject really came when I was in the Ministry of Defense as a civilian employee and I was just assigned that particular job. So there was no sort of sense that this was always what I was destined to do because of a childhood interest. No, it was more just the way things turned out, I guess. Yeah, well, incredible. And you advised the UK Ministry of Defense between 1991 and 1994. You spent your time investigating reports of UFO sightings. That must have been really phenomenally interesting. And then also you were going to meetings with some of the world's biggest thinkers. And so when you worked for the British government, was your job to validate or invalidate the UFO claims? Was it to investigate them more deeply? What was your role? Well, it's quite complex because there are two sides to it. Firstly, I had to take a data-led approach in the investigations and clearly going in with a preconceived mindset, whether that's a sort of skeptical debunking attitude or whether it's an overly credulous true believer. Neither of those mindsets are very helpful in an investigation where you really need to be even-handed, open-minded, and as I say, go where the data take you. So my job was to do those investigations to the best of my ability and assess the defense, national security and safety of flight implications of what people were seeing and reporting to us. Now, having said that, I must confess that, and this is no secret now, now that a lot of the old files have been declassified and released, but for decades, it was our policy to play down the extent of our interest in this to try to spin it, essentially as being of little defense significance or interest. So in some ways, I'm afraid to say that I was a real-life man in black. Is there a particular case that was indeed valid but was really like so beyond this reality or realm for you to look at? Is there something you can talk about and share? I think two come to mind. One was before my time on the program, but it was still looming large in everyone's awareness. And that was the Rendlesham Forest incident. And I can talk briefly about that because it's possibly second only to Roswell in terms of its profile with not just the UFO community, but also perhaps the wider media and public. And then there was a case that happened during my posting in 1993 where we had over a period of six hours multiple sightings over many different parts of the UK, huge triangular-shaped craft capable of moving from a virtual standstill to very high max speeds in just an instant. And I can talk about that too, but Rendlesham is the one that most people, I think, have heard of and always want to know a little bit more about. And it was truly bizarre because you had a multiple military witnesses, these were US bases on British soil where over a series of three consecutive nights in December, 1980, these US Air Force personnel saw on the first night a landing on the second night, just more lights predominantly in the sky. And on the third night, the deputy base commander who was a skeptic sent out to debunk all this became a witness himself. And it's a truly bizarre, multifaceted story. The object was briefly tracked on radar. On the first night, as I mentioned, it landed. And there were indentations on the ground where this thing came down, weighing several tons, burn and scorch marks on the sides of the trees. Rendlesham Forest lies between two military bases. And most incredibly of all, radioactivity levels that were assessed as being significantly higher than the average background. And all this is validated, not just by the witnesses themselves, but in a now declassified UK Ministry of Defense case file on this and in parallel in the US military documents. So it's the perfect storm of reliable witnesses, declassified files and physical trace evidence in terms of radar, radioactivity levels, ground markings, burn marks, scorch marks and so forth. It's really interesting what you say about the radioactivity. I saw a documentary recently where there was actual sighting of alien beings. They had had a crash. And the people who had ostensibly gone to assist them, I think they were actually going to research them, they died because they had touched these beings and they later found out the beings themselves were so radioactive. It seems to me that they live by chemical properties that we don't have or know here, we have them but we use them for destruction, right? But they have a personal usage of this either for how they travel or how they are or what they need for being. Have you run into more of that? Yes, I mean, there is a debate to be had, I think, about where the dividing line is between say radioactivity and the harms that come from that and a sort of toxicity which some witnesses have described. For example, in the Virginia case from Brazil. That's the one, yep. Right, yeah. I am aware of at least a couple of films on that. I think the most recent one is by James Fox and excellent writer and director who's a personal friend of mine. And his film is I think called Moment of Contact about that case. And so that's an interesting aspect. I think the radioactivity is related but slightly different. And in declassified British government documents, it talks about there's one intelligence assessment in particular where there's this line and I'm doing it from memory. So it's not 100% accurate but it's something like, and this is from a secret UK eyes only document. It says the well reported Rendlesham Forest incident is a case where it might be speculated that witnesses were exposed to UAP radiation for longer time periods than usual. So a couple of things about that. Firstly, UAP is government speak for UFO, of course. Unidentified aerial phenomena or more recently unidentified anomalous phenomena. They keep changing the terminology perhaps to make Freedom of Information Act requests a little bit more tricky. So that's one thing. The second thing is that this intelligence assessment was used in a legal case because some of the Rendlesham witnesses believed that they had suffered health issues attributable to their encounter. And they were negotiating with the VA on this, not getting very far until I pointed out this to a lawyer, Pat Frasconia, who was doing hundreds of hours of pro bono work for these people just because he was an extremely dedicated individual who wanted to help some of the witnesses. And I said, look, I'm not breaking the law here. This has been declassified and released now. But look, the VA are saying and the military are saying, no, no, this didn't happen. We can't possibly settle. But look, here's this line that talks about exposure to UAP radiation as if it is a thing, a very, very definite thing. And he went back to the VA with this and they settled in the case of at least one witness. Sadly, I can't discuss too many of the details because of people's HIPAA rights and their medical confidentiality. But there is some material on this in the public domain. And it went all the way up to Senator John McCain was involved in this, Senator John Kyle. A lot of people did a lot of work on this. Do you feel like things are changing at the government level? I just served when I was in Mexico City. I was on a UFO disclosure panel with Stephen Bassett and you know his position, Neil Gar, Doctors JJ and Desiree Hirtak. And it was very interesting. We all had very beautiful and unique points of view to share with the audience. What is your point of view about where we're at now compared to you're talking about a very particular time, 1980s and there was still a lot of cover up and not disclosure. So what do you feel things are like right now and where do you think we're headed? Well, I think you absolutely hit on it in the opening to your question when you talked about how this has changed. And that's absolutely what I'm seeing with this. This whole subject has moved out of the fringe and into the mainstream in the last six years in a way that was unthinkable beforehand. I mean, we talked about Rendlesham as you say 1980s then my posting on the MOD's UFO program in the UK in the 90s, but even more recently, the pushback that I mentioned when some of the Rendlesham witnesses were complaining about these health issues and were just dismissed out of hand. But now it's all changing and that's great. It's great for the witnesses. It's great for the people in the UFO community who've worked so long and hard on this to try and move things forward. And it's great I think for the media and the public who some of whom are really dipping a toe into this for the first time. And now I think you may have used they're saying to themselves, wait a minute. We were told this was all just crazy conspiracy theory talking science fiction. And now we find NASA doing studies on it. Reports from the Department of Defense reports from the office of the director of national intelligence, congressional hearings, UFO provisions in the current defense bill. And just as we speak today, of course, it's the last day that Congress, both the Senate and the House, the last day they sit before the Christmas recess and they've just of course pushed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024. It's going to go to the president for signature I'm sure by the end of the year. There are UFO provisions in there. I mean, this is a situation that I think people wouldn't have conceived of a few years ago. So that's absolutely where we are. This fringe to mainstream flip in the narrative that we've seen and more to come. Yeah, I agree with you. And I love that this is becoming as open. I go places where once upon a time I'm always aware of who's my audience and who I'm speaking to. And so there are times when I would have edited myself and just not shared. I share very openly today not even knowing who my audience is. I mean, just socially or going places. And I am constantly pleased and surprised by the level of intelligence and conversation I have with people who are fully on board with all of this, who get the reality that we are not alone and we've been visited since the beginning of time. And so that makes, that causes my next question to you. Do you feel that first contact open, undeniable, all beings on Earth will know is about to occur anytime soon? I wouldn't bet against it. There's an old saying in government that the time when you stop being secretive about something is the time when the secret can no longer be kept. And that's where we're getting to with this subject now. And I think one of the reasons we're getting there is science. And in particular, I'm talking about the James Webb space telescope, for example, and also the square kilometer array radio telescope construction of which is now underway. These tools are, I think, going to open a window on a world that has previously been closed to us. And the point where, for example, with James Webb, a lot of scientists, a lot of NASA scientists, for example, doing astrobiology, now talk about not just biosignatures, but technosignatures. In other words, they say, if there are civilizations out there with technologies not that much ahead of us in, say, comparison to the age of the universe around 14 billion years. So just a few hundred or thousand years ahead, they might construct vast structures like Dyson spheres, for example, to meet their energy needs, something which would encase or harvest the energy of an entire star. And something like that would be detectable. It would leave detectable fingerprints that something like James Webb, if it was pointed in the right place, give a little bit of luck, could find those objects if they're out there. And now scientists are talking about this, not in terms of crazy sci-fi, but we should do this. We might find this. And the square kilometer array radio telescope, again, will have the power to detect radio emissions broadly of the strength of an average airport radar system out to a distance of 50 light years. So again, that's the point. When you can't keep something a secret, there's no point trying. And if somebody is sitting in on information about this, that's the point where instead of struggling to kind of keep the lid on it, what you do is you try and get out ahead of the narrative so that you can drive the narrative and be the one setting the agenda. How do you do that? You start drip feeding the information out, you have hearings in Congress, you put it in the defense bill, you do, in other words, exactly the sort of things that we're seeing now. So there are many who believe that this is a sort of laying the groundwork for the inevitable day when science probably makes the critical breakthrough and says, we found it, here it is. And at that point, as long as it's repeatable, there's no denying it. And if there's a Dyson sphere out there orbiting a nearby star system because there's another civilization, pretty much like us, but a little bit more advanced, it's game over, there's no more debate about this. Yes, I really appreciate what you're saying. And it seems such divine timing to me that the drips are happening, that the conversation is opened, that this is becoming more and more real for more and more people exactly at the crossroads when we're creating a new humanity, when we're creating a new earth. I don't think there's any accident that at that same time we would begin, even if it's on a soul level, to invite in who I consider to be our cosmos, brothers and sisters that were genetically connected with them anyway, DNA-wise, and that we would say it's time. Everything here is new, right? The underbelly of what hasn't been working has been coming up to be exposed and healed. I think that's the point. And that this would also be the right time for this to unfold. It's completely the right time. Yes, there is this sense of convergence here now. And people, you mentioned earlier that you go out and now I think you said, you don't have to watch what you say about this. It's suddenly, it's respectable, it's mainstream. You don't have to kind of think too much about who the audience is. Because even if you're dealing with a broadly skeptical audience or an audience that perhaps is neutral, once you start talking about this now, somebody, as long as they're reasonably well informed in terms of just following the news, they're likely to say to you, oh yes, I saw there was a hearing in Congress about that the other day. Or, oh, I saw that the Pentagon just released another report. Or I saw those US Navy videos. Well, you wouldn't be having that conversation five or six years ago. And so absolutely 100%, we are in a fundamentally changed world where it's okay to talk about this, whether you're somebody who's had a sighting or an experience, whether you're a researcher, all those people who perhaps in the past had a tough time of it. Now, I think their moment has come and they should enjoy it and relish it. I mean, they are the people who I think history will show was on the right side of this. Yeah, brave souls, absolutely, who are putting themselves out there and speaking the truth. I know also that there has been a lot of activity recently in Mexico. Alien corpses and unearthing of objects. I actually saw pictures. Yeah, I was like sworn to secrecy that there was an individual who had unearthed on somebody's properties. It was unreal what I was looking at. It was like these, I don't know what material it is, because I don't think it was from here, but let's just call it a type of a cement or a very, very hard maybe clay. But it was literally alien heads, elongated alien heads and objects we've never seen before. And this person is keeping them very safe right now. But what are your thoughts about Mexico and some of the things coming to light? Oh, it has been a UFO hotspot, I think, for decades and maybe a lot longer than that. And yeah, I've been following with interest a lot of the stories. Obviously there's controversy about some of it, but as always, I think science can be the independent arbiter here. And for example, with materials, there are a couple of fairly basic things that can be done that would give very quick answers to some of this. I know obviously the challenge is to get it into a laboratory under the right conditions so that it can be properly studied, independently studied, then peer reviewed, then written up into one of the big journals. But just on the materials side, for example, the debate, well, did this come from space or is it something terrestrial? It's surprisingly easy to answer with, for example, a technique called isotopic ratio analysis, which is, incidentally, it's the same if you go to like an expo and somebody's selling meteorites and you want to say, well, how do I know that I'm not just paying for someone, a rock that someone picked out of the garden? There are the ways of telling and isotopic ratio analysis does this because when something travels through space, it's exposed to cosmic rays and cosmic radiation that we are protected from on earth by virtue of the atmosphere and various other layers of, you know, vinyl and belts and such like. So it's quite an easy basic test and it's quite binary. Either something was terrestrial or extraterrestrial. And again, with the structure of the materials, you can do an x-ray diffraction test and again, it's not my area of specialism. So I won't, I'll try not to mangle the science too much, but the essence of it is that you can look at the structure of the molecules, the way in which it all lines up. And again, this is sort of, you know, senior high school, bachelor level tests that can be done. And obviously if they're done in a university lab or a government lab, it's much more sophisticated than that. So these are exciting times and these things can be validated. And I'm watching with interest. You're watching with interest. Yes, me too. And noticing how much more this occurs, more and more, it's in the media. And I find it a really exciting time to be alive and witness all of this. What about secret prototype aircraft and drones? Do you have knowledge of those? Yes, there's no getting away from the fact that people are citing those sorts of things. That does sometimes give rise to UFO sightings. So whether you're a civilian UFO research organization like MUFON, or whether you're doing it from within government, as I did in the UK, as people like Lou Elizondo and Dave Grush did in the US, you always have to be mindful that some of this, you know, is gonna turn out to be our own technology or technology belonging to an adversary, which is even more disconcerting if it's in your airspace around your military installations, for example. But again, intelligence agencies have a pretty good handle on what we've got. I mean, even when these programs are highly classified and extremely compartmentalized, that you wouldn't necessarily be read in on the details. But if it's our own tech, somebody would come up and have a quiet word and say, no need to push too hard on this one, we know what that was. And again, if it was with another nation, whether it's ally or adversary, again, the intelligence folks have a pretty good idea of who's got what. And they would say, well, that sounds like it might be that new, I don't know, Chinese prototype aircraft, for example. So people, it's always a bit of a struggle in that highly classified world. Sometimes you feel you're going around in circles, but generally speaking, some of these sightings will be misidentifications of secret prototype aircraft, missiles and drones. But even as I say, without the details of the program, you've got a pretty good idea if that's an explanation or not. And there are plenty of sightings where that's not the explanation to make you think there's more to this than just these prototypes. Are there psychological operations known as PSYOP meant to influence? And what is the level of their existence? Ooh, that's a really tricky one. Yes, absolutely. We see PSYOPs all the time. Sometimes I would think from our own government. At one level, a PSYOP is, it sounds fancy, but it's simply a way of trying to influence people, what they think, what they believe, what they then do as a result of their beliefs. We see it, I mean, any election campaign uses PSYOPs. The military use PSYOPs in times of conflict and war to try and basically get people either behind their efforts or turn people against a particular nation or group. Happens all the time, happens in a sort of a civilian example of that in one sense, it's just advertising. You could say advertising is a PSYOP to turn people on to a particular product. And make them want to go out and buy it. So sometimes we can over complicate things by using these terms, but in relation to UAP, absolutely it goes on. I think you'd say that for decades, there was a PSYOP to downplay this, to debunk it in people's minds, to make people think there's nothing to this. With one interesting exception, one time in history, it kind of went the opposite way. And that's in the 50s and the 60s. There were some occasions where civilian pilots saw, and this kind of, it's interesting question because it segues nicely from what we were talking about in relation to your last question. In the 50s and 60s, occasionally our own pilots caught a glimpse of things like the U2 spy plane or the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft. And of course, the US Air Force and the CIA didn't really like that and certainly didn't want pilots going to the media and saying things like, hey, I've seen a very strange aircraft. I think it might be a sort of next generation spy plane or something. So what the US government and the intelligence community did as a Psyop was sort of talk up that what at the time was known as the flying saucer mystery. And actually they wanted the pilots to think and talk about this in terms of flying saucers and a little green men because what they knew was that if the Soviet defense attache was following this in the media, he probably wouldn't pay much attention because he'd just say, oh, crazy Americans seeing flying saucers. But if the story was written up, commercial pilot sees new spy plane, the Soviet defense attache might pay a lot of attention and start doing some digging. And that's not what we wanted at all. So that's a good example, I think of a Psyop. Clever, very, very clever. So Nick, you moderate Ancient Aliens Live which is a touring event and what is the latest cutting edge that you are seeing and learning about globally, paranormally, extraterrestrial, other dimensional or otherwise? Well, I think Ancient Aliens Live is a 90 minute stage show based on the successful TV series which has now been running since 2009 and it just seems to go from strength to strength. I think one of the strengths of it is that it doesn't preach to people. It doesn't say this is the way things are. It starts, you know, could it be? What if, is it possible? And so yes, obviously at its heart is ancient astronaut theory which suggests that this isn't a new phenomena. It's been with us since the dawn of time and that we've been visited and our ancient extraterrestrial visitors were perceived by our ancestors as gods and worshiped as such. And we constructed monuments and ceremonies and all sorts in commemoration of these amazing events for which our ancestors had no real words or concepts. But what Ancient Aliens I think is segueing into and the same with Ancient Aliens Live is bridging the gap between the ancient and the modern which I think is really interesting. And so Ancient Aliens, the TV show and Ancient Aliens Live, the stage show, one moment we'll be talking about the pyramids or Stonehenge or Leilines, all these amazing ancient sites and sacred energies and such like. And then the next moment we will segue into talking about David Grush and his testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee or what the latest provisions are going into the Defense Act. Next year, and I like this idea of bridging the ancient and the modern. I like, I'm a nuts and bolts kind of person as you can tell from this interview. I don't really consider myself a hugely spiritual person but when I go to spiritual events and speak at expos and things like that, I expose myself to people and to viewpoints that I wouldn't normally come across and hopefully we bridge the gap there and we learn from each other. And I'll learn a little bit about consciousness studies and somebody who's more spiritual and things will maybe learn a bit more about radar and x-ray diffraction and isotopic ratio analysis. And that's, it's that meeting in the middle where I think the interesting work is being done right now. Whether it's TV shows and state shows or whether it's in conferences and expos. Yeah, and thank you so much for the work you're doing here because one of the things I really appreciate as somebody who watches this, I'm talking specifically about the television show, I have to say, I think those editors are genius. It is so hard to call from the hundreds of hours of interviews and footage and photos and videos and somehow make these sound bites all on one subject that literally there's an arc that leads into a story from beginning to end to open our minds to things. And I watch as a spectator and as somebody who's deeply involved in this information, but there's an aspect of me that also watches from a production point of view. And I think I don't know how they make the magic they do, but it's really brilliant. Well, I think the one word answer to that is teamwork. And it is an amazing team. I mean, obviously you have Giorgio Succolas who is not just the face of the show but also an executive producer. But then you have all the other people at the production company, Prometheus Entertainment, some super smart producers, writers, researchers. But at the end of the day, people have got to get boots on the ground. And as you say, I mean, you obviously know this business very well. I mean, you will produce hundreds of hours of work, particularly when you go on a field shoot, you fly out somewhere, you stay there. If it's overseas, often for days, you're shooting hundreds of hours, you're getting all sorts of raw data. And at the end, you have to distill it down into what, 42 minutes of television. Amazing. That tells the story from beginning to middle to end doesn't preach to people, but leaves people with a sense of awe and wonder and has them going away, talking amongst themselves, they watch the show together as families, as many people do, asking those same questions. Could it be, what if, is it possible? Hats off to the team. So I hope they hear this because I do really appreciate it. Yes, and of course, a super smart bunch of contributors, whether it's Linda Malton Howe, Caroline Corrie, David Childress, William Henry, from all these different areas. So sometimes you'll have people from, I think you'd say sort of outside the core team in, but you get scientists now like Michio Kaku appearing on this because of what we were, yeah, talking about what we were mentioning earlier about how the narrative has changed. Could you imagine one of the world's most famous, arguably perhaps the world's most famous scientist, Michio Kaku, could you imagine him appearing on ancient aliens 10 years ago? I couldn't, it's a sign of how the times have changed and how the tide has turned on this and what was now fringe is now mainstream and respectable and these hugely respected scientific figures like Michio Kaku, like Avi Loeb. And now, of course, Avi Loeb, Harvard professor who runs the Galileo project, now doing research into this, talking about it openly, another sign of just how far we've come in a little time. Those are the stories I love the most of the awakenings, somebody like Michio Kaku who's on one path and has his own awakening, I think by virtue of being introduced to this material so often and like you said, going to expos and speaking to people and you get an opening where that information can start coming in and you start seeing the validity of it, I think it's phenomenal. He himself would say that he's very surprised, Avi Loeb as well and those are the most beautiful stories because they didn't start as believers necessarily. No, I mean, I'm not a scientist but I'm one of the non-scientists who Avi Loeb has invited to join the Galileo project. So I'm there as a research affiliate. I've met Michio Kaku actually in Barcelona at that conference I was mentioning before it went to Mexico City this year. I think it was just before COVID, I think in about 2017 or 2018, Michio Kaku was the keynote speaker and I had the immense honor and privilege of getting to spend sort of two or three hours having just a one-on-one dinner with him afterwards and my goodness, what a super smart person he is and what an amazing conversation we had running through a whole range of subjects, including UFOs. He seems like he'd be delightful, like he'd be a hoot to have a conversation with. Oh, yes. Yeah, you just never know. One moment you'll be talking UFOs and next thing you'll be talking about the future evolution of humanity. Well, I guess some people would say those are connected subjects but he's a real polymath as well, of course, as being a theoretical physicist and known for string theory and for the work that he's doing at the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator in Europe. He's a real polymath. You could raise a subject almost at random in terms of science and he would bring something amazing to the table. Oh gosh, well, along those lines your Twitter handle is at Nick Pope Maud, like moderator and at Nick Pope Maud. I'm just telling folks in case they'd like to go there and on Twitter at one point you wrote and I quote, spookily, my wife is a scientist, a skeptic and a redhead, which I find funny. So I also at one point considered myself a very open-minded skeptic. I'm not somebody who bites with everything by any means. How do you and your redheaded wife connect on these subjects about aliens, about UFOs? Where is the middle road for you? In a sense, you know, there isn't much of one which I think is good because otherwise I'd be doing this 24-7. So we have very different areas of interest and expertise and now of course, just simply because we've heard each other's material. She knows all about this subject. She's still skeptical, but that's fine. You know, every molder needs a Scali and we're living our real life ex files. But I think that's good. I think it would be a very boring world if everyone did have the same opinion on this. So my aim is not necessarily to change people's minds on this because as I say, if everyone was lockstep, then I think that would be a very bad thing. But I think we kind of, we avoid arguing about it of course, but it's great because it means that when I've come back from filming or when I come back from, say, speaking at a conference, we won't continue that conversation. We might talk about politics, about film noir, about wildlife, some of our other passions. And that's great because variety is the true spice of life. Hmm, that's beautiful. Well, there's a lot of whistleblowing going on right now. People coming forward, as you said earlier, congressional hearings being heard. There's a lot happening and percolating. Do you have any insider perspective, Nick, on the unfolding UFO situation? In the USA, I'll start with the USA. And is there anything different between USA and globally what's happening? Well, let me take the second question first because in one sense it's easier. Most of the government initiative on this subject, that you see is being driven from the US right now. I mean, yes, there was a briefing, as you know, to Mexican lawmakers a while ago, but in terms of just the level of both classified briefings, public hearings in Congress, legislation, it's a very US centric. It's a very US centric situation at the moment. Now, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing because it's clear to most people who've been following this closely that this is a global phenomenon. And we don't really want a single nation driving the agenda here. We want a wider conversation bringing in all sorts of different nations, all sorts of different perspectives. But we are where we are and at the moment there's no getting away from the fact that it's the United States driving this. It's NASA, it's the Pentagon, but it's also fortunately the scientific community too. We've mentioned people like Michio Kaku and Avi Loeb, but there's also of course Dr. Gary Nolan at Stanford doing a lot of work on this. Eric Davis, scientists who were in government and are now elsewhere, people like Jay Stratton, the former director of the UAP task force, but specifically on the whistleblowers, obviously David Grash is very much in the spotlight right now and he's doing a lot of the heavy lifting and I have tremendous respect for him for that, not least because he's suffered some pushback with people planting some smear stories about him in the media, absolutely disgraceful by the way because the PTSD that he has is a result of serving his native country with honor and distinction in Afghanistan. So to go after him for that is truly shameless and shameful and shameless, I think. But there are other whistleblowers too. Around, I think somewhere between two dozen and maybe 30 have come forward to Arrow, which is the Pentagon's unit that has the lead for this, they're all domain anomaly resolution office, but some have come forward separately to Congress, both to people in the Senate and the House and there are a number of different committees involved in this oversight committees, intelligence committees, armed services committees. And as I say in both parts of Congress, so it's actually a little confusing, maybe arguably too many people involved in this, it's not entirely clear who the lead is, but we've got these whistleblowers, some are just on the verge, I think, of coming out. If speaking to you today, I'm gonna predict that probably by the end of this calendar year, we'll know some names of new whistleblowers who we don't know at present in. So I'm gonna, I don't like doing too many predictions, but I'll do that one, I'll throw that in, why not? Let's have some fun with it. I'll say by the end of the year, we'll know at least one, maybe two new whistleblowers names, partly I suspect that some of this will corroborate things that David Grush has already testified about, but some new material too. So I hope that it will be a mix of collaboration and corroboration, but also sort of extrapolation from that and some new material too. And we may even get, we may even get by the end of the year, some more reports from the government itself, some historical reports. They're mandated under, I mentioned a couple of times what's going into next year's defense bill. People shouldn't forget that there are UFO provisions in the current defense bill. So it's been congressionally mandated for a year now that the Department of Defense must go into the archive and give a report to Congress and thus to the people too about these historical programs. So I think we might get some interesting things by the end of the calendar year. Beautiful. Wow, thank you for the prediction because you're speaking imminent. This is within the next two weeks, this will unfold. And Nick, are you sharing this as someone who is in the know that you've got some insider information or as a spectator watching what's been unfolding and feeling the impulse, the flow of what's going on? I have to choose my words carefully here, but it's a bit of both. I am no longer working for the government and I do not at present hold an active security clearance. However, I still speak to a number of people who are how are in the system and people formerly in the system who are still talking themselves to people who are still serving. So I am getting some strong indications of what might be coming down the pipeline fairly shortly, but yeah, part of it is separate from that. Part of it is also just being able to read the tea leaves on this and see which way the wind is blowing. So it's a little bit of both. I am getting some, nobody is leaking to me. I want to make this very clear. Nobody is improperly or illegally leaking classified information, but clearly people at the unclassified level talk to each other. I mean, heck, to give a sort of silly example, but it's true. I'm still in the one of the oldest, longest running UK Ministry of Defense fantasy football teams. And even though I took early retirement years ago, I've still got friends in the system and we still talk through the medium of something like a fantasy football competition but or just a Christmas catch up. So within the balance of legality and propriety, I am getting some indications of things that will be coming. But as I say, part of it is segues into the fact that having my government background, I can give some informed inside a perspective of how I see things unfolding. Yes, thank you for your honesty. And that is a very exciting prediction because those voices that have been singing in the wind and have been persecuted for speaking up, even though they've made waves, still it's a lot to take on oneself, especially with the pushback. So to know that there will be more of a chorus coming, there'll be more supporters saying, this did indeed happen, I did see this, here is some evidence and so forth. That is wonderful news because I think once that dam breaks, more and more people will be apt to speak up and come forward and that's needed. Yes, and I think this is where it's perhaps bank fired because elements within the intelligence community colluded with at least one journalist to plant these smear stories by essentially pointing a big arrow and saying if you were to make a Freedom of Information Act request to these people for this sort of thing, in these dates, you might dig up some dirt and they did. Well, a lot of people far from saying, ooh, if they're gonna do that to him, I'm gonna stay quiet, got so enraged by that that the sense now is let's swing behind this person and support them. And so there's a sense of, oh, that's how you're gonna play it, right? You think you're gonna put me off like that? Well, bring it on. That's beautiful. Yes, yes, yes. You, Nick Pope, are going to be speaking at Conscious Life Expo. This is February 9th through 12th. I think you're there almost every year, but we're talking specifically about 2024. This is going to be at the LAX Hilton as all previous years. And folks, I'm going to have a link in the show notes so you can register and get your tickets now. What are you gonna be speaking about? I know you're actually speaking several times. Talk about that. What can we look forward to? Well, I have, as you say, I have attended the Conscious Life Expo previously, but this year, I think my level of involvement is really ratcheting up. And I'm going to be giving a talk called After Contact, which is going to be more speculative, but again, hopefully it's an informed speculation. And it's going to talk about the central premise is, let's forget, is it or isn't it? Let's just say it is. What are going to be the societal impacts and implications of open first contact on politics, religion, science, technology, philosophy, arts, the entertainment on every aspect of humanity, which will be touched by this in some way. So my talk is going to be After Contact. I'm also doing, I think it's something like two and a half hours of an ask me anything. And it could be related to that. It could be related to Rendlesham Forest. It could be anything that we've discussed today in our interview or anything that we haven't. I mean, you can do a lot with two and a half hours and I'm going to be very, very informal with this. There are going to be no red lines. If we do hit something classified, I might just have to say, well, I can't give details, but that'll be about it. For the most part, there are no taboo subjects. So I'm doing that. I'm sitting on at least two panels, I believe. A UFO panel, which is just going to look at everything, all the kind of cutting-edge developments and latest news that we've talked about today, NASA, the Congress, the Defense Bill, the whistleblowers. And hopefully, as I say, following on from my predictions, hopefully we'll have a lot more to get our teeth into. But there's an ancient mysteries panel as well. There's a disclosure lunch. I think George Neury will be hosting one of those events. Jimmy Church will be moderating some of this. I'm going to be there, obviously, with a lot of other amazing friends and colleagues. I've already mentioned some of them. Linda Moulton-Howell is going to be there. Caroline Corey is going to be there. Danny Sheehan is going to be there. He's the person who, I think, bridges the gap between talking about the sort of religious, spiritual, consciousness side of things, but also is very well briefed on what's going on with the nuts and bolts of this, is actively talking to people in Congress about some of this. So it's an conscious life expo. As I describe it, it's always a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones as well. I'm hoping to go to as many of the other sessions as I can. Of course, with my own schedule, that's not always possible, but it's a great venue. The LAX Hilton is, you know, you just, if you're in LA, it's fine. But if you're flying in, it's right there. And it's going to be an amazing event. I am looking forward to being there for every day of that amazing event. I will be as well. It is my favorite thing. I look forward to every year. I have had most of the people you just mentioned already on the show who have been interviewed in previous years. I've been doing this over 16 years. So you run with very good company. And I myself will be moderating a panel on Saturday at 2.30 at the event called ET Origins. And that's two and a half hours. I invite folks to come. You must come see, of course, our amazing guest, Nick Pope. And Nick, I want to say this is the first because I think I've been going to Conscious Life Expo for 12 years. And I have never heard of somebody who's just opened up to Q&A. And I love this idea, this organic flow of information. I think it will be almost more exciting than if you had planned a whole second or third presentation to just avail yourself to everybody. So kudos for that idea. Well, thank you. Yeah, I just thought, given that I'm giving a lengthy talk, I could give a workshop, but it's just in one sense, it would just be another slightly longer talk. That's no disrespect to people who are doing very specific different things with their workshop. But I just thought, what the heck? Why not? Let's just see what the audience want, where they'd like to go. And I'll roll with that. And I just have to ask this question because I had actually read that this is what you were presenting, the first presentation that you do about the what happens once open contact is made and how does that impact us? And I will not ask you to give anything away because that's gonna be an amazing presentation, but will you give some glimpses, some insights what you think might happen? Maybe a couple of tips once open contact has occurred. Well, I think a couple of things on, with my optimistic hat on, I would say that after open first contact, we might think of ourselves less in terms of identity politics, whatever category we define ourselves as and more in terms of I am a citizen of planet Earth. So I think there might be this sense of being able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. So I have some optimism for that, but one very specific area that interests me and a prediction is the technology because in a universe nearly 14 billion years old, there might be civilizations out there with a billion years head start on us. I want their technology. And of course, we're not in a position to demand anything, but if we can establish an open respectful contact where they come here, perhaps as teachers, I'd love to get my hands on that technology. I mean, not personally, I mean, I'd like for us, all of us to get our hands on that technology because that will be the technology that takes humankind to the stars. And my goodness, as we're just learning through James Webb, there's a whole universe out there. We are at the moment stuck on one planet, orbiting one fairly ordinary star. There are somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars in our one galaxy and somewhere between 100 billion and 400 billion galaxies in the universe. There's an awful lot out there and I wanna see some of it. Beautiful, I want a med bed personally. That's what I'm all about. That's one of the technologies I'm very excited about because I know the advanced civilizations have ways of healing and curing that we still can't conceive of here. And I'm very much looking forward to that amongst other things. So Nick Pope, this is Dare to Dream. What do you next dare to dream? What are your future dreams and goals? Well, my future dreams and goals are to continue on the path that I'm on. I'm incredibly lucky. I think life has dealt me an amazing hand that I just locked into this job that I had this posting at the Ministry of Defense that opened my eyes and my mind to this whole subject and set me on the path that I'm on now. And I think that I'm lucky to have that media platform that because of that background, the mainstream news media do come to me and ask me to come on and do a, oh, something's just happened in Congress on this. Can you come on, quick three, four minute interview, just explain it in lay person's terms. And it's an honor and a privilege to be in that position. And I see my role as a communicator on this and I will continue to do that to the best of my ability, whether it's through appearing at Conscious Life Expo or continuing with the Ancient Aliens TV show and Ancient Aliens Live stage show, whether it's going on to these TV news programs when a story breaks or other documentaries or other live events where I can bring it to people more personally. So I will continue to do more of the same, but I will also look for fresh opportunities. And the great thing about that is you never know what's going to come suddenly and unexpectedly from left field. So I will look out for the opportunities because if past experience tells me anything, it's that they will come and when they do, you have to be ready to seize those opportunities. Fortune favors the brave, I will try to be brave. Yes, yes, fortune favors the brave and yes to opportunities, this is the time to take hold of them and ride those waves. Nick, I know people can read, they can find you at nickpop.net and I will definitely post the link also for Conscious Life Expo so people can get tickets to come see you. Is there any other place that they should go to find you and connect? I think one of the places where I post most frequently is ex formerly known as Twitter, where my handle is at nickpop.mode, the M-O-D of course standing for Ministry of Defense. So at nickpop.mode on ex slash Twitter. Beautiful, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really enjoyed this. Thanks for having me on, Debbie. I really enjoyed the conversation and I look forward to seeing you at Conscious Life Expo in Los Angeles in February. It's gonna be an amazing event. It will be an amazing event and folks, I end today's show with this quote from Marianne Williamson. Nothing binds you except your thoughts. Nothing limits you except your fear and nothing controls you except your beliefs. Subscribe to this number one transformation conversation Dare to Dream with Debbie Dashinger. Please leave a comment and share. It really helps and I read them all. Next week on the show, the guest is the amazing Sarah Breschman Cosme. She's back again talking about her work with Dolores Cannon's QHT process and Sarah's powerful new book, The Trail of Tears. Thank you for joining us today. Keep an open mind and watch out for those predictions to come true.