Title: CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou on UAP Crash Retrieval & Government Se
Show: Lehto Files - Investigating UAPs
Date: 2025-02-28
URL: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64634535/john_kiriakou_cia_whistleblower_on_uaps_and_government_transparency.mp3
Duration: 59:00

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[01:00] And as we're driving, we see this brilliant flash of white light. And we both looked up into the sky. And there's a second flash and then a third flash. And then this orange trapezoid lit up and just hovered in the sky. And if you're a wixoblower, you have rights. I would also recommend very strongly that you seek the assistance of an attorney before blowing the whistle.

[01:30] Not after. That's the mistake that I made. I had to be reactive to everything the government was doing. I thought, well, I'm not the only person who's opposed to this. So somebody's going to say something. And then nobody said anything. And so finally I said something. And the government fell on top of my head. So I ended up going to prison for 23 months. I have zero regrets. I would do it again tomorrow. I think we would be fools if we didn't have a retrieval program.

[02:04] And of course, because of its very nature, it would have to be classified at the very highest levels. Nobody's asking the government to release the details. Just put our minds at ease that we're not crazy when we see these things in the sky. And then you say, no, you didn't. You didn't see anything. Chris Lado, welcome to Lado Files. Hi, welcome to Lado Files. I have a very exciting guest today.

[02:36] I'm with John Kiriakou. He's a former CIA officer, whistleblower and author who exposed the US government's use of torture in its counterterrorism operations. As a veteran intelligence officer, he played a key role in capturing high-profile al-Qaeda members before becoming the first US official to publicly confirm the CIA's waterboarding practices. His revelations led to significant public debate on ethics in intelligence and government accountability, ultimately resulting in his own prosecution.

[03:08] Today's an advocate for whistleblower rights. He's a journalist. He has a show, CIA declassified, and he's a vocal critic of governmental overreach. Thank you, John, for being here. How are you doing today, sir? Thanks for having me. Doing well, thanks. Okay, amazing. I was happy to be on your CIA declassified show. We'll show a teaser later on in the show. But on that, you explained about your own personal UAP experience. Can you tell us about that? My audience would love to hear it. Sure.

[03:38] When I was 17 years old, my mom and dad bought a restaurant in a nearby town. We lived in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour north of Pittsburgh. It's a very rural area. They bought a restaurant in Sharon, Pennsylvania. It was 20 miles away. And so to get from Newcastle to Sharon, you have to drive through Amish country. And it's very, very dark in Amish country because the Amish don't use any electricity. So my dad and I, on the weekends, worked the midnight shift.

[04:10] I was a short order cook, and of course he was there to manage the restaurant. So we left our house on a Friday night. It was at 10 o'clock. Figure we'll get there at 10 30 to start working at 11. And we're in Amish country, very, very dark again. And as we're driving, we see this brilliant flash of white light. And we both looked up into the sky and there's a second flash and then a third flash. And then this orange trapezoid lit up

[04:42] and just hovered in the sky. We pulled the car over and got out. So the thing hovered there for long enough for us to get out of the car. And we're standing there just staring at it. Without saying anything, a man pulls up behind us and gets out and he says, what the heck is that? And my dad said, I don't know. And then it just took off at a fantastic speed.

[05:12] Unlike anything I've seen, or I had seen before or have seen since, I mean, it just, it went like that. Fantastic speed. And we just stood there looking in the sky. And then we got back into the car, started driving again. And I said to my father, should we call somebody? Should we like call the cops or something? And he said to say what, we saw UFO and it flew away.

[05:42] People will think we're crazy. And so we didn't say anything. I told my mom the next morning. She believed us, of course. My dad said exactly the same thing that I did. And I'll tell you, for weeks after that, my eyes were just glued into the night sky, hoping that I could see it again or something again. And that was, you know, 43 years ago. And I've never seen anything like that since. That's an amazing story.

[06:13] And you said no sound, right? No sound at all. And it just hovered. And it wasn't terribly far away. I'm going to say it was hovering at, I don't know, 2,000 feet, 3,000 feet, maybe 3,000 feet. And not making any sound at all, just hovering there. And I should add too. So it's in this trapezoidal, my fingers can't do it, trapezoidal shape.

[06:44] And in the four corners of it were bright glowing orange lights to the point where the orange lights were so bright that they illuminated the rest of whatever it was. And you know, over the years I've said to myself, maybe it was a balloon. No, of course it's not a balloon because of the speed with which it took off like that. And it wasn't just floating there and then it just kind of casually floated away like a balloon might.

[07:15] There's a small municipal airport. Oh, just three or four miles away. But it closes at sunset. And so it wasn't that. And I honestly, I don't have any explanation for what it was other than it was unexplained. Any idea how large it was or how big it was? I know it's hard to tell at distance. Yeah, hard to tell, but I'm going to say

[07:47] I'm going to say it was probably 25 or 30 feet across. Big, bigger than, you know, a Cessna. It was at that airport that I learned to fly years later. So comparing it to a Cessna. Yeah, it was two or three, two and a half, three times the size. Did you talk to your father later on, like later in your life about it?

[08:17] Yeah, I sure did. But it was always one of us saying, remember that thing we saw up in the sky back in in 82? Like, well, how can I forget that thing we saw up in the sky in 82? Yeah, I remember it. And then, you know, because I had seen something, I immediately took an interest. And as I mentioned to you on, on the CIA to classified, Jimmy Carter saw something that was unexplained and went so far as to file a police report saying that he had seen this

[08:50] thing hovering in the sky. But he said that what he saw was buzzing. He admitted a buzz that he could hear. But if the president of the United States is seeing, you know, things in the sky, then, you know, I don't feel so alone. Yeah. When, when is the first time you actually talked about it? Did you feel the stigma? You know, did you feel a need to keep quiet about this? I did. I did because I didn't, I didn't want people to think I was crazy or making something up. And I tell you what, over the years I've,

[09:20] I've thought about it and I've, I've thought, you know, my goodness, my dad was there and my dad saw it because my father was, you know, this seriously a pillar of the community. When he died, it was on the front page of the local paper. He was that kind of a pillar of the community. And so if Chris Kiriakou saw it, then something was up there. And did he ever talk about it? No. Publicly. No, never. Just to me.

[09:52] And like I say, it was, it was always remember that thing we saw up in the sky in 82. Yeah. Have you seen anything since then? No, nothing even remotely close. But I've mentioned this a couple of times to friends, close friends and relatives. And I've been surprised at how many people have seen things that they just have not been able to explain. I mentioned to you on CIA to classified that I'm very close to

[10:24] a, to a cousin, a second cousin. He's older than I am 14, 15 years older than I am. And his father owned a restaurant too here in, in Alexandria, Virginia. And so when I was a kid, I used to come down here, stay with them, hang out at the restaurant. And he had a friend who was an Air Force pilot. And he told me once that he saw something, some sort of craft dive straight down into the water.

[10:56] Off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia. And then seconds later come straight up out of the water and fly away. And I said, what in the world do you think that was? And he said, we're not supposed to use the words flying saucer, but it looked like a flying saucer going down to get a drink. That's what it looked like. And that's always stuck with me as well. And again, this isn't just some nut that you sit next to in a bar. This is an Air Force pilot, a fighter pilot, right?

[11:26] These are the best of the best. They're the guys who have gone through the most extensive training and, you know, to be able to handle a craft like that. And if he says that he saw something like that, I believe him. It's interesting too because the coast of Virginia, that's basically where Ryan Graves, you know, his four ship video, the gimbal. That's right. UAP video. And they've seen many other sightings. They said almost daily sightings of these strange objects,

[11:57] you know, a dark cube inside of a sphere, some sort of clear sphere. So it's interesting off the coast of Virginia. And, you know, it makes me think too, whatever these are, do they congregate around air bases? Or is it because we have air bases and we have pilots and people trained in this kind of thing that we see them there more frequently? I'm not sure. I think, yeah, we don't know, you know, because the

[12:27] data certainly comes from where our military aircraft are flying, or at least from Aero, you know, the data they released was basically all of our training areas. So it could be where we're looking. Maybe that's why our nuclear sites have so much surveillance. You know, maybe that's why we're seeing them or our military aircraft are out there actually seeing these things. It could be, I guess, everywhere, but we're just not looking in those areas. I don't know. It's an interesting question. I was amazed to see or to hear the conversations

[12:59] between pilots either released or leaked a year or two years ago, where, you know, they're saying things like, are you seeing this? What is that? And they're watching these things take off at these amazing speeds, speeds that we're just not capable of doing. So you've been interested in UAPs since your own sighting? Or have you just thought of it recently? No, since my own sighting.

[13:31] And like I say, I've looked at the skies ever since. I'm a lifelong, well, not lifelong, but since then. Telescope user. I have started doing astrophotography. The skies fascinate me. And I so wish I had seen something a second time, just to sort of reinforce my own belief that there really was something out there. But I've never seen it again.

[14:02] When you were in the CIA for many years, did you ever hear anything about UFOs or UAPs? Because in the Air Force, my whole career, I'd never heard anything. No, not a single word. And when I joined the CIA in 1990, we had just initiated this transition from paper documents to computers. I'm going to date myself here. I don't feel very old. But when I joined the CIA, we had typewriters on our desks. And you could smoke at your desk as crazy as

[14:32] that is. Oh, and even crazier. There was a barbershop in the basement of the CIA. And they had playboys out, right? So this was a different era. Yeah, it was a different era. You can't do any of that stuff anymore. But anyway, we started to transition to electronic systems. And virtually as soon as I arrived, I said only half jokingly. So where's the UFO information kept? And my boss laughed. He said, we all ask that when we get here.

[15:03] There is nothing like that. If there is such a thing, it's with the Pentagon. And that was always my understanding because I never, ever, ever saw anything related to these kind of phenomena. Yeah, the same. I remember I was an aggressor in Alaska, actually, but that's when we were flying those cool painted airplanes. And we got to take a trip to the CIA. I'll never forget it. You know, we walked through the long entrance, you know, the white tunnel entrance.

[15:33] And the big deal was it was the highest classified lunch room we'd ever been in. You know, we're eating lunch in this top secret lunch room. That was like the highlight of going to visit the CIA. Yeah. Even the fast food people have security clearances. We used to have two different lunch rooms. There was the classified cafeteria and the unclassified cafeteria. The unclassified cafeteria was so tiny. Nobody even bothered to go there. And it was on, it was for use during those rare occasions when somebody, it was usually a government

[16:05] worker from some other department or agency, but who didn't have a security clearance came for lunch. And then they just did away with it because nobody was using it. So now you have to be clear to get into the cafeteria because half the people in there are undercover. So you can't, you know. In your casa, the internet never stops. Neither does Optimum. While 5G home internet slows down when your vecinos log on, Optimum keeps going. Bueno. Famously fast fiber internet. Bonito. Whole home coverage. Every rincón, barato.

[17:07] government doing what I think many people would consider as, you know, evil things, torturing people to get information and keeping it secret. So I think it's very courageous for whistleblowers such as yourself to come out. So thank you for doing that. And can you give us some background? What was that experience like? It was, it was rough. I was the, I was the chief of CIA counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after the 9-11 attacks. And we, we carried out raids, dozens

[17:38] upon dozens of raids. And we caught a man by the name of Abu Zubaydah who we believed was the number three in Al Qaeda at the time. I objected almost immediately to the treatment that we were, that we were using on prisoners before we began torturing Abu Zubaydah. For example, the night that we captured Abu Zubaydah, we caught dozens of Al Qaeda fighters. I'm still not allowed to say the

[18:09] number of Al Qaeda fighters that we caught. And this is a minor point, but it, it's sort of indicative of, of the way things ended up going. We caught so many people that night that we had to bring them out for interrogation in shifts. And there was an idiot working for me and he led this group of ten prisoners in and they had hoods on. And I said, why are they hooded?

[18:39] And he said, we don't want them to see our faces. And I said, are you seriously telling me that you have never read the Geneva Convention? It is a war crime to put seriously. I said, take the hoods off. And he said, wait a minute. He tells his the other these other guys that were standing there. He said, wait a minute. If you take the hoods off, I'm going to report you to headquarters. And I said, oh, I'm already reporting you to headquarters for committing a war crime.

[19:09] Take the hoods off. We took the hoods off. We reported each other and I got in trouble. You got in trouble. I got in trouble. I said, it is a war crime to hood prisoners. And headquarters senior officer at headquarters told me that the world has changed since 9 11. We do things our way. And I said, but the Constitution hasn't changed. You know, behind my back, they started calling me the human rights guy.

[19:39] And I didn't care. And then a friend of mine, I have this good friend. He's he's a lot of things. He's a renaissance man. He's a Brigadier General in the Army Reserve. He's a psychiatrist at the CIA Brigadier General in the Army Reserve. He's a psychiatrist at the CIA. We've got to the same church. We're in the same men's group. So he came up to me one day and he said, you know, they call you the human rights guy behind your back. And I said, I know, I don't care. And he said, you know, that's not a compliment. And I said, Steve, I'm right

[20:09] and they're wrong. And I don't care if they're insulting me. Well, this torture program was so patently illegal in my mind that there was never any question about it. We have the Federal Torture Act of 1946, which forbids exactly those techniques that we used. We are not just signatories to, but we're the authors of the United Nations

[20:39] Convention Against Torture, right, which specifically bans. We wrote the we wrote it. We wrote the International Treaty, which has of course the force of law in the United States. And then we just decided that we're going to do it anyway. And we did it anyway. It was so patently illegal that I just assumed somebody would come forward and blow the whistle on it. And I'm seeing these highly classified cables where people are saying, well,

[21:09] wait a minute. You know, when I took Democratic oath, I swore to do no harm. And now you want me to torture this guy or revive him so he can be tortured more. And I resigned or I'm curtailing my torn. I'm coming back to Washington. So I thought, well, I'm not the only person who's opposed to this. So somebody is going to say something. And then nobody said anything. And so finally, finally, I said something and the government fell on top of my head.

[21:39] So I ended up going to prison for 23 months. I have zero regrets. I would do it again tomorrow. And in the end John McCain, thank God for John McCain and Dianne Feinstein passed the McCain-Feinstein amendment, which formally banned torture. It was signed into law in December of 2014 and 2016.

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[22:41] you get an option to apply. The Optimum. Comfort details. You know, the price was high, but we did it. It sounds like torture is not even going to give you good intel. Even at the end of the day. You can always say I'm being tortured. Exactly. And the fallout from that is several cold. None of the al-Qaeda leadership have been prosecuted because Nothing that they said can be used

[23:13] and second The information just isn't reliable. Is the person going to tell you what you want to know? Probably, but he's going to give you so much trash to go with it Yeah, that it's going to take your teams of analysts six months to go through it to decide or to determine What's true and what's not true and by then, you know, the bomb has gone off or the next attack has taken place and It ends up netting you nothing nothing Besides the fact that you've put yourself on the same moral plane that they're on I know it's amazing to me

[23:49] It seems like all of this just comes from fear Like you mentioned they're willing to break the law because they're scared of their faces being shown You know, they're willing to let their integrity just be trampled or to look the other way Because of it's a fear, right? Basically. Yeah We even had there there were two FBI translators that were on loan to us that night that we did the raids and We carry out the raids. It's you know, three three thirty in the morning and the translators said

[24:19] I I don't want to translate. It's like, what do you mean? You don't want to translate? Well, I don't want them to see my face well, then maybe you should have gone into another line of work and So I ended up doing the translations. It was ridiculous Yeah, well, they have to have woods. No, they have to not have woods because it's a violation of the Geneva Convention Yeah, it's amazing and And the fact that no one else went along with it, you know when you reported them and

[24:51] Then you got in trouble even though you knew without a doubt you knew the law You knew the rules. You knew that we're not, you know laws of armed conflict. Obviously we follow those we wrote them So I guess how did you feel when you when you were attacked as you were reporting what is correct? Well, you know that the initial the initial feeling is one of extreme disappointment But the day after I blew the whistle. I got an email From a retired deputy director of the CIA someone for whom I had long-standing respect and

[25:28] He said to me you've chosen a difficult road But somebody had to say something. I only wish I had had the guts to do it myself And that meant so much to me. I saved it all these years That it made me realize that I wasn't alone. There weren't gonna be people There weren't gonna be very many people to stand up for me in public. There were some But I knew deep down that I wasn't alone And we're taught that you know, I mean I remember at the Air Force Academy just you know crawling through the mud

[26:03] Having people yell at you. You're so tired. You're exhausted and they just beat it into you that you know All you really have at the end of the day is your integrity. That's it You know, that's it. Let's so now even though you did 23 months in prison for this You would gladly do it again, you know, it just shows that it does matter integrity is is important Absolutely, I would do it again. Yeah, the first the first interview that I gave when I got out of prison was was to the BBC the British Broadcasting Corporation and they have a they have a program called

[26:38] hard talk and it's supposed to be like It's considered to be sort of the 60 minutes of of the UK, but it's very very Confrontational where they will yell and scream and point the finger at you and they want to provoke a fight and so I Just wasn't playing the game and They finally the interviewer says you're not showing any remorse at all for your crime

[27:08] And I said I said no Because I have no remorse. I would do it again today if I had the opportunity. I would do it again I'm not making any apologies for anything. I was right and they were wrong and history will smile on me So no, I show no remorse and then afterwards Oh, and then there was a second question that he asked that he kind of got angry that I didn't respond to He said you don't appear to have any hostility to the people who put you in prison

[27:39] And I said no, I actually don't because what would that gain for me? right if if Nelson Mandela can can forgive the the apartheid government for imprisoning him for decades or Martin Luther King can can forgive the people who imprisoned him dozens of times for standing up for his rights I have no right to be angry for being imprisoned. And so it doesn't I don't gain anything by being angry Or bitter it's water under the bridge and as soon as I said water under the bridge

[28:14] He said I find that very hard to believe and I said, well, I'm sorry that that you're angry that I'm not angry But I'm not angry and to tell you the truth things have worked out very nicely for me You know the country has come around to my point of view John McCain stood up on the floor of the Senate and said that that without my revelations the American people would never have had any idea what the CIA was doing in their name and

[28:44] so You know you get to know who your friends are your real friends and And who walks away from you which was also very valuable. So it was all worth it It's amazing and Yeah, so you were able to forgive them. Have you seen the system change? What is your feeling on the the recent whistleblowers that come out and say that their lives have been threatened? You know like David Grush, they did freedom of information act request on a random Sheriff location to find out issues about his home life as PTSD issues. What's your take on these current whistleblowers?

[29:20] Yeah, that's that's scandalous there's First of all, I just as a policy I support all whistleblowers. There's a legal definition of whistleblowing It is bringing to light any evidence of waste fraud abuse Illegality or threats to the public health or public safety So if you've done that you're a whistleblower and if you're a whistleblower you have rights I would also recommend very strongly that you seek the assistance of an attorney Before blowing the whistle not after that's the mistake that I made

[29:54] I had to be reactive to everything the government was doing So if you're thinking of blowing the whistle hire an attorney First and have that attorney sitting next to you when you blow the whistle But what you're talking about is is actually a very common kind of harassment that whistleblowers face The the other side immediately tries to discredit you. Oh, he has PTSD Oh, he saw you know a marriage counselor 10 years ago. Oh, he's on an antidepressant

[30:26] None of that is relevant to your whistleblowing It's it either you told the truth or you didn't tell the truth And if you told the truth Everything that you said is protected by law So everything is protected by law, but in your case you still went to jail Is that because you didn't talk to a lawyer first or why do you think that happened? No, no There's a book there's a book written by a Harvard law professor by the name of Harvey Silverglate called three felonies a day

[31:00] And he says that we are so Overly regulated so overly criminalized in our country That the average American on the average day going about his or her normal business Commits three felonies Every single day We have five percent of the world's population in the united states. We have 25 percent of the world's prison population Yeah, so if they want to get you they're going to get you They charged me with three counts of espionage for

[31:34] For blowing the whistle on the torture program. I hadn't committed espionage They offered me 45 years in prison And and I said now and as a matter of fact I'm going to go to trial and I'm going to testify on my own behalf And I might accidentally talk about some of the heaviest crimes against humanity and war crimes that I witnessed in 15 years at the CIA They ended up dropping all of the espionage charges, but then they charged me with this obscure law Obscure crime. I was the only the second person ever charged with this crime in american history called the intelligence identities protection act

[32:12] And um, it was because I had confirmed The last name of a former co-worker That's the crime That's the crime and and the name was never made public So how did you who did you confirm it to? If it's not published a journalist a journalist writing a book And he said hey, can you introduce me to this guy named john? Uh, you used to work with him and I said, oh, I think you're talking about john doe

[33:46] You go to my IMDb page. It's over a hundred, uh tv appearances talking mostly about torture and and the cia and and war crimes and things like that. I've written eight books I've not only testified before the the european parliament But but I wrote a whistleblower protection law for the greek government That was then adopted by the european parliament and is now the law of the entire european union They've they've made me they've made me what I am today

[34:19] Just because they thought that prosecuting me Would uh would silence me and instead it it made me somebody Interesting And I have to ask is he's obviously controversial. What is your take on edward snowden? Well, I think I think snowden's a bona fide american hero We we wouldn't have had any idea That the government was spying on us if snowden hadn't said something and not only is it illegal

[34:49] For the government to intercept our communications. It's a part of nsa's charter That they're not permitted to spy on americans and in fact Most of what they do is to spy on americans Yeah, but we wouldn't have had any idea It's amazing. Let me add something to that too if I could chris um A couple of weeks ago Tulsi gabbard The the new director of national intelligence appeared before the senate intelligence committee as part of her confirmation hearings

[35:20] and senators of both parties repeatedly Tried to get her to say ed snowden was a was a trader Both parties and they used the word trader over and over and over again. Well either these senators are stupid Or they're ill-informed There is a constitutional definition of treason And it is providing aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war

[35:51] He did not provide aid and comfort to the enemy and we are not in a time of war There hasn't been a congressional declaration of war since December the 8th 1941 the day after pearl harbor. Well, so by definition He's not a trader secondly senator angus king the independent democrat from maine um Tried to get tulsi

[36:22] to say that Snowden had defected to russia. This is something that he kept repeating. He had defected to russia. He did not defect to russia He was in the transit lounge At moscow airport on his way to ecuador When john carrey the secretary of state Uh revoked his passport and stranded him In the transit lounge at moscow airport So there was no defection to russia And this nonsensical accusation that what he turned over to the russians

[36:54] Uh what he took from nsa. No, he turned over to the washington post and the guardian and wiki leaks What he took from nsa. It's all out there. Anybody can can go look at it He didn't turn it over to the russians It's there for any american to see So these are just lies about snowden to try to trip up tulsi gabbert and it's a shame that it came From both the left and the right from both the republicans and the democrats

[37:24] Yeah, i'm very happy to hear you say that. Um I was just so angry to learn about the nsa Uh the program, you know really just spying on all of uh all of our data all americans And I remember I make no excuses. Yeah, there's no excuses. They were found no they were found uh, it was In two federal courts it was found that what they were doing was incorrect and yet I yes if I mention anything about snowden on my channel I mean from diehard patrons from, you know, long-term supporters will just write me angry messages

[37:59] You know saying that he's a traitor He's done all these things. I don't like the way he did it And again, they attacked the person like he mentioned They attack him But what about the terrible misdeeds that our government was doing? You know exactly those doors Exactly because they didn't think they'd get caught And then for a long time after they did get caught Their response was always the same 9 11 Hmm Yeah, that's all they have to say they go before congress. They say 9 11

[38:32] It's like, yeah, you know what that wears thin after a while The constitution gives me rights. You're violating my rights And I want my rights back Tell me if nsa Wasn't spying on americans or was spying on americans incidentally to spying operations on foreign nationals Why do they need a new facility in the utah desert? That has enough computer memory to hold Every call

[39:03] Every voicemail every text message from every american for the next 500 years. I am not exaggerated Look it up 500 years. Why why do they need our data? You know and why you're it's all fear. It is it's all fear base again They just go they testify before congress. They say 9 11 Can't have another 9 11 Well americans didn't do 9 11 Why are you spying on americans?

[39:37] So what you've seen in You know from your own whistleblower experience Um, obviously you feel as strongly as I do I feel the same about Edward Snowden Um, what do you think the chances are you know, because I'm labeled a conspiracy theorist or people in my My lane are labeled a conspiracy theorist because our argument is is that I believe David grush that he you know That there has been a long-running UAP crash retrieval reverse engineering program. I tend to believe him and the other whistleblowers

[40:07] Do you think it's possible that this could have happened that it is true that there is a retrieval program? I do I think we would be fools if we didn't have a retrieval program And of course because of its very nature it would have to be classified at the very highest levels You know even at the cia I my last job at the cia was I was the uh the executive assistant to the deputy director so I had literally the highest clearances And I got to see literally everything that the cia was doing everywhere in the world

[40:42] I did not have access to what you're talking about But similarly I did not have a q clearance Which is the clearance necessary to um to be read into nuclear And nuclear policy issues So you can be at the very top of the security clearance food chain and still not have access to uap information You know that it's out there. You know that the program exists. You know that it is tightly compartmentalized as it should be

[41:14] But then at the same time there's a big difference Between acknowledging the existence of a program and releasing the details of the program Nobody's asking the government to release the details Just put our minds at ease that we're not crazy when we see these things in the sky You know and then you say no you didn't you didn't see anything There is no such thing You know look over here. Let's talk about this instead At least acknowledge that it's happening It seems like the biggest argument or the best argument is that it's uh

[41:46] National security, you know, we we would give up our our own advantage We would give up vulnerabilities Into our own systems if they release this Do you think there's any validity to the argument that they should keep this secret based on national security? No, and i'll tell you why uh until Until the late 1980s I'm sorry the late 1970s the the federal government did not even acknowledge the existence of something called nsa

[42:18] Okay, until the 1990s The british government did not Uh admitted the existence of their version of ns state gchq Okay, now big revelation. We have this thing called nsa Who cares nobody cares We didn't ask to be told all of nsa's secrets We just want to know does nsa exist. Yes, it exists. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to go about my business so UAPs do they exist? Yes. Okay. Thank you now. I'm going to go about my business

[42:52] I didn't ask you to explain to me what the science was I didn't ask ask for you to to let me into the Hanger where you have the pieces of the vehicles that that crashed I just want to know that i'm you know Where my tax dollars are going And to make sure that you guys are at work to try to keep me safe No secrets have been spilled It doesn't damage the national security in any way to acknowledge the existence of such a program What do you think is the best way to to get this information out? Do you think it is?

[43:27] Through whistleblowers. Well, is that where it'll come from? You know, that's that's probably the most satisfying Because you're going to get more information from whistleblowers than you would for many from many Approved press release, let's say But then the whistleblower puts himself at risk at legal risk mostly um So the answer is yes and no yes in that if it weren't for whistleblowers

[43:57] We wouldn't know half of what we know right now about things like torture and warrantless surveillance and UAPs and such But then at the same time I think we would all like for it to be official Yeah, I I hate having to argue with people. Well, this whistleblower said that well This whistleblower said the other thing. Well, I know that other whistleblower and that person's meant to leal And they've been saying this, you know on 4chan for the last 10 years. Okay. Let's let's make it official Just an acknowledgement not asking for secrets here. Just tell us where our tax money is going

[44:32] Are you guys on this case? We'll see if we can get it maybe this year I've seen a lot of uh, I sure hope so I'll tell you the very the one and only thing That I liked about hillary clinton Literally the only thing Was that in the 2016 election? She said that if elected president she would release all this information And really it was john pedestal her campaign manager Who had the fascination with it and who talked her into

[45:07] Staking out that position I hope donald trump feels the same way because I think it's high time that We know as john mccainstead what the government is doing in our name That's interesting. You said that as well because um ross cultard talked with him. He said that was a big Argument or or he I don't know if he believed it or at least it was one argument is that They were setting up disclosure to be under hillary clinton like she was going to be

[45:37] The disclosure president so they had set up all these things in order to make it So that she would actually disclose the information and then she lost And so they had to shut everything down that that basically stopped the process of disclosure So it's interesting exactly right And like I say it's john pedestal and it's my understanding that john pedestal Saw something in the sky at some point and has been fascinated by it ever since and he's the one who talked her into doing it

[46:08] Yeah, so look at it this way too. The structure is there So that if donald trump Wants to release it. It can be released rather quickly But I you probably know better than I I don't know if he's ever taken a position on these things I've I've released a few videos on him and immediately lost subscribers You know anytime you talk about these politics going on it's amazing even when they're talking about Disclosure and transparency

[46:39] Uh, immediately lose subscribers. So he said he doesn't Uh, believe that there's Necessarily ufo's but he does believe that the pilot saw something So he kind of gives your your standard mainstream. Okay vague vague response is what I've what I've seen from him actually Okay, well I don't know maybe Pete Hexeth has seen something Maybe Marco Rubio. Maybe I don't know. I hope so. Yeah, definitely the people he has in his cabinet

[47:11] Like Marco Rubio was surely briefed by many members or many whistleblowers. I'm sure jake barber Briefed Marco Rubio and his team as well as other people So I think we're in the best position. I've seen at least the government in As of late and it's interesting too because I I never I've never seen anything Um anomalous, right? You know that I can say definitely not when I was flying as a as a fighter pilot And I didn't even think about it as a fighter pilot But I believe people such as yourself, right that you obviously have integrity. I think you've you've shown that in the past

[47:48] You know, why would you why would you lie about this sighting? You know that you saw Many years ago and I think there's so many thousands of people Such as yourself that are we going to believe people like you or people that we know are we going to believe Uh a security state which obviously has a lot of interest in keeping this this stuff secret and as Shown in the past that they will break the law or go against the constitution to I guess Save their own skins or

[48:51] Yes, I think that's right on on cia declassified, which you generously agreed to appear on. Um We talked also about a recent sighting Around lake michigan on both sides of lake michigan Where most of the people reporting the sightings were meteorologists that not only could they see these Things whatever they were flying in the sky and going down Into the water and coming back up again, but they were able to track them on radar

[49:22] And then when the military comes out and says It's not us. We don't know what the heck it is, but we're seeing it on the radar too Well, then it kind of leads to questions, doesn't it? And then the radar tapes disappear when you ask about later exactly Exactly So interesting. Um, yeah, why don't we Uh, finally, let's talk about your cia declassified show. I have a little teaser of uh, the show I was actually on so why don't I play a little bit of that right now?

[49:53] great My whole career in the air force. I was trained as a scientist at university. I went to yusafa. I was a material scientist And so I never thought any of this stuff was possible And I kind of just casually looked into it, you know, just saying oh, well that that can't be correct You know it's that must be crazy right But the more you look into it it is there is an amazing amount of of information. There's an amazing amount of cases I hadn't actually even heard of that case. Um, but it doesn't surprise me

[50:24] It doesn't surprise me at all once you start looking into this What should we expect to see next especially at the pentagon? Should we expect more transparency now that they've begun actually speaking about this? Uh in an unclassified venue or do you think this was a one-shot deal where a couple of years ago They said okay, we're going to release these videos. We're going to lease release some redacted reports and then that's the end of it Well, I think they they didn't even really release those original videos. You know, they were leaked luals ando essentially Leaked them. That's a good point. Even though they're they're unclassified

[50:57] There's nothing classified in any of those videos that they released, you know And if you look they'll release countless videos of war of us blowing up You know some building as soon as If it's pro propaganda Then they have no problem releasing these videos of targeting pod images, you know of f-16s or other aircraft Hitting targets blowing up and killing people on the ground But then if it comes to these videos all of a sudden now, they can't release them, you know too hard to release

[51:27] So those videos were were actually leaked And then the only ones that we have gotten like I said, aren't the ones who we're really asking for which is nimitz Gimbal those are the ones, you know, what about what about those analysis? So it has come At tooth and nail the government has fought tooth and nail Against this pretty much every step of the way and when I say the government I really mean I really mean the the the military industrial complex the bureaucracy So that would be the the career bureaucrats the career

[52:00] People in organizations like the c.a. I'm sorry. I've pointed a lot of fingers at the c.a. But I do too Also the Also the pentagon. So really the heroes in this whole thing have been the congressmen and women Okay, so, uh, yeah, thanks for having me on the show you you a it was fun Y tv unified tv. It's unif yd unified tv

[52:31] It is an online tv network a subscription network, but they have dozens of shows Lots and lots of documentaries and they address issues like the one that we're talking about It's been a lot of fun. C.i.d classified Is a show where we take We take historical issues and we use the actual Classified c.i.d documents that have been declassified

[53:01] Uh to explain these historical issues think of Think of say the the iran coup of 1953 the chile coup of 1973 the murder of journalist george polk in uh, thassaloniki greece mk ultra mk chikwit these these Experimentation programs using lsd or mind control all these these things that have been talked about for so many years We we take the original documents and go over them and now in season two

[53:32] We're also interviewing interesting people like you who have far deeper background on these issues than than i do So it's been it's been good season one was a success We even tightened it up and made it more professional looking in season two And I think people would enjoy it I just published a board actually haven't published it yet just recorded a video um talking about the jfk files release and there's this alleged memo that jfk allegedly sent Uh to the director of the cia mcconn at the time

[54:06] Um asking for all of the ufo files But unfortunately they they've been unable to find a second copy of this or any sort of copy of this Memo all they all they have to go on is this one author lester who says that there was a foyer request Have you looked into the jfk files release at all or or the assassination? I've written i've written quite a bit about it. Um I i'm i'm making an educated guess in my writing that

[54:37] uh these Files that will be released soon In the next 60 days will not be revelatory. They will probably Show information About cia surveillance operations in mexico city in october and november of 1963 I think that pretty much everything that's going to be released about jfk has been released keep in mind that in the early 1970s

[55:09] uh cia director Helms destroyed a lot of documents Which was illegal, but they destroyed a lot of documents. And so I think that Whatever is left for the most part has been released That the new 10 or 15 000 pages of documents are going to be documents mostly that have already been released But with fewer redactions Um, so we're not going to see a revelation We could see a revelation With the release of the rfk documents. Okay, and in my view, that's the more interesting

[55:47] Trunch that we should expect for a couple of reasons sir han sir han Who was convicted of murdering bobby kennedy? uh held a revolver with seven shots eight bullets were recovered And a forensic uh examination in 1993 found that there were between 10 and 13 shots fired So Where'd the rest come from? thomas negucci who was the los angeles county coroner at the time and his world famous

[56:21] Uh said that the kill shot came from behind kennedy to the back of the neck From a distance of one to three inches But sir han was in front of kennedy So where did that shot come from? There's also a video showing um a security guard That night named cesar Uh Who hated kennedy and had written anti kennedy?

[56:52] um screeds Because this man was was a racist a bigot and he he he said that kennedy would turn the country over to the Commies and the colors like his brother had And so there's a video of him in the background pulling a gun out of his waistband And you hear bang bang bang bang bang bang and he puts the gun back in Well in the late 1980s, he's dead now, but in the late 1980s uh a national geographic channel

[57:23] 1990s a national geographic channel interviewer Interviewed him and said did you kill robert kennedy and he said no i was going to But that arab fella got him first Well, he was polygraphed by the fbi as part of the investigation and he passed the polygraph So Where did those extra shots come from? It may be Finally we'll get an answer to to that question or to others surrounding the kennedy assassination

[57:55] And then the martin luther king documents are going to be released at the same time There's credible evidence that the fbi, you know may have had something to do with that killing The fbi tried to get king to commit suicide three years earlier. They sent him an anonymous letter Urging him to kill himself Does that work? I guess never never We'll send him a letter. What if we can talk him into killing himself? yeah wow, so You know james url ray who was convicted of killing him

[58:26] uh Was drunk Was in the bathroom of a rooming house a block away Sat in the bathroom all day long until he saw king and then took that shot from a block away drunk Come on So there's there's are some incredible Um Incredible accusations out there that the fbi was involved and then martin luther king the third his eldest son Said publicly that he never believed james url ray killed his father

[58:59] And he went to prison multiple times and met with james url ray Martin luther king the third believed that the fbi killed his father And the fbi had already murdered fred hampton they executed fred hampton in cold blood while he was sleeping No less they shot him in the head while he was asleep in bed Because they were so fearful of that you know that black savior in the 1960s Yeah, it seems like it all comes from fear all these um

[59:29] All these terrible deeds. Yes Yes, it's fear So what has been from doing the show from your experience in cia? um Being a whistleblower what's been the most I guess um shocking thing that you've learned from about uap's specifically or I guess most enlightening thing you've encountered You know There was nothing that I learned while I was at the cia It's once I got out of the cia that I began really learning about this stuff by watching people like you for example

[1:00:05] You know, it's it's nice to know that there are others out there who Believe there are others out there who have seen things themselves who are not lunatics Right, the when this information was was leaked What was it a couple of years ago from the pentagon showing video for example? And and and the audio pilot to pilot audio saying things like are you seeing this? Look at how fast it's going It makes me realize

[1:00:36] That no, no, there's something out there that we just don't understand The government wants us to think that we're crazy or that our eyes are playing tricks on us Or we're not seeing what we think we're seeing it's something that's easily explainable. It's not Let's just be honest about it I don't understand why there's such pushback against honesty and about and and transparency We should be transparent about this So it's been the last couple of years have been particularly exciting in this area

[1:01:09] Yeah, I totally completely agree. It really has been exciting and it's great to see people such as yourself out there john I mean, I really think integrity is is is all we really have to stand on And yeah, I really admire. I really admire your courage and thanks for speaking out now Thank you Say for everybody in the audience go check out unify d tv check out cia Declassified think will all be in the descriptions for everything john does And uh, yeah, please like this video and share it to get the information out
