When I started writing for this site a few years ago I had no idea what it would lead to. I never thought I’d interview celebrities, or review a book, or visit Comic-Cons with a press pass. I figured I’d post trailers that interested me and maybe write a hot take on a film I’d seen, but it’s given me so much more. It still manages to surprise me, however, when something especially out of the ordinary comes across my desk.
INTERVIEW AND REVIEW OPPORTUNITIES: VOLCANIC UFO MYSTERIES
I had to blink several times to be sure I’d read that right. I’m being given the opportunity to screen a UFO documentary and then interview the experts featured within? Um, yes please!
I’ve always been a geek for sci-fi since reading Asimov’s Science Fiction and Omni magazines as a youth, as well as viewing the BBC’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and “Doctor Who” (Tom Baker’s years, obviously). Shows like “Quantum Leap” and “The X-Files” were on in my home on every premiere night, and it’s one of the things my dad and I shared as fanatics. We loved all sci-fi, from the Treks and Wars of the Stars to the Shannara Chronicles to actual hard science from Einstein, Feynman, and Sagan. We still send each other bleeding edge science articles to this day. We’re on board for the future!
That said, do I believe in UFOs? Eh, I can’t give you a hard “no.” The scientific possibility of extraterrestrial life, given the size, scope, and material makeup of the Universe is undoubtedly high. There’s just too much carbon out there for it not to group together into some form of life many times over in every corner of the galaxy. To think that we’re the pinnacle of Universal evolution would be as arrogant as believing there’s only one drop of blood in the ocean. Even from a religious standpoint it seems unlikely that a Creator would stop at populating only one planet, especially seeing how we’ve turned out. Admitting that, do I believe in UFO experts? To put it flatly, no.
I’m not saying I’m not keen to discuss the possibility of extraterrestrial life with a fellow curious mind, but the militant tenacity of a turtle-necked expert bellowing “There is no IF, it’s certainty!” turns me off. Science demands we keep an open mind, and the binary nature of the universe demands that with every belief there is possibility; certainty should entertain doubt, whether it be yes or no. That’s why principles as sound as relativity are still referred to as “theories.”
Of course, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to talk to an “expert” even if just for my own (and hopefully my father’s) amusement. So I viewed VOLCANIC UFO MYSTERIES before sitting down to chat with the filmmaker Darcy Weir and the featured Disclosure Activist Stephen Bassett. After viewing the film but before the interview I did a bit of my own research, maybe an hour or so of pointed Google searches. We talked on the phone for over thirty minutes. Here is our interview, followed by my thoughts on the documentary:
Eric McClanahan - Thank you guys both for calling in today. I’m Eric McClanahan talking to you on behalf of Ain’t It Cool News and I’m talking to you today about the documentary VOLCANIC UFO MYSTERIES. So my first question is for Darcy Weir: Why this film and why now?
Darcy Weir - I think the UFO issue is always going to be a constant, prevalent news story. If you look at the reports that have come out recently, we’ve got reports being released by The Pentagon, and it seems like there may be a disclosure event happening in a bigger way from the government, particularly the United States government, hopefully in the next year. I know that this documentary VOLCANIC UFO MYSTERIES is kind of a niche story; it’s about Jaime Maussan in Latin America reporting on many different volcanic UFO events that have happened throughout history but what it’s important about these stories is that these aren’t civilian aircraft, they’re not military aircraft, that we know of, so what are they? These are objects that seem to be going in and out of extremely dangerous active volcanic areas. We look at the Tic-Tac UFO or the Gimble UFO footage that happened over the Pacific ocean and these are state-of-the-art military aircraft that are not only pacing these craft, trying to keep up with them and track them, but they’re also using state-of-the-art technology to capture video of them, otherwise not only would you probably miss them with the human eye but you’d lose them because they’re moving quickly and in a different light spectrum sometimes. I relate that, those incidents, to what’s happening around Latin America around these extremely dangerous volcanic eruptions because to our knowledge we don’t have any craft that operate like that, that can be in these dangerous areas, and I think it’s important to talk about these events that happen all around the world, not just the United States.
EM - Now, Stephen Bassett, your campaign is for disclosure, ending the Truth Embargo, and your position is that extraterrestrial visitation is an effort to intervene in human obsoletion as we near the Technological Singularity. What, if any, correlation do you see with extraterrestrial visitation and volcanic activity on planet Earth?
Stephen Bassett - I am in this documentary, but I’m here to support Darcy, too. I’ve always been a big supporter of the content creators; the people who are writing the books, creating the podcasts, the hundreds of thousands of websites, the documentaries and so forth. These are the people that have informed the public now for many decades on these issues while the government was essentially saying there wasn’t anything here to make a documentary or write a book about. Darcy has been quite prolific; he had the six-part series BEYOND THE SPECTRUM, the VOLCANIC UFO MYSTERIES, the UNDERGROUND, which gets into this subject as well as crop circle realities. So, the volcanic subject intrigued me for one key reason in that it reflects the reality that in the modern world there are billions of cameras. That wasn’t the case in ancient Egypt. As the Truth Embargo, which is the refusal to confirm the extraterrestrial presence by heads of state, continued decade after decade, more and more cameras were being put up all around the world, including in the hands of billions of people who now have cameras on their phone as good as the best cameras from the 1940s.
The volcanic situation is interesting because volcanoes pose a huge threat to the human population in many cases, and there is one that is outstanding in that regard and that is Popocatépetl. It’s 43 miles from Mexico City, it’s been active since 2008, and in addition to that it is creating tremors and could generate a major earthquake which could destroy Mexico City if it was big enough because it sits on a lake mass, or lake bed, and worse they’ve virtually emptied the underground aquifers under the city; they’re running out of water in Mexico City, a lot of people don’t know this. It could be a catastrophe. So a major earthquake would probably kill several million people. So there’s a whole lot of cameras focused on this volcano, have been for some time. Not surprisingly they’ve picked up things including craft, or what seem like craft, in and around the volcano, even going inside the volcano. This is just one more example of mounting evidence that something is going on that we can’t fully explain and that got my attention, and it’s important. It’s important to know what’s happening there, particularly if you live in Mexico City. We have cameras all over the United States, cameras in space, on the International Space Station, in our planes, and they are picking up things all the time. Not to mention we have cameras on Mars which have been picking up some rather interesting photos, which are constantly being highlighted and put on the Internet.That the government continues, though that will change very soon, to say “there’s nothing to investigate here or whatever it is it’s not a risk” is a ludicrous lie which is simply embarrassing to the country and undermining the trust that people have in their government, which is slowly dwindling to nothing.
EM - I’m glad you mentioned that, because I read that the Covid-19 Relief Bill, which was signed into law in December, has a stipulation that The Office of Naval Intelligence, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, and the FBI must divulge all their findings and analysis on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena to Congress in an unclassified report within the next five months. Also, the CIA’s entire collection of UFO documentation is now available on a website called TheBlackVault.com by John Greenwald, Jr. What more is there to divulge?
SB - First of all, it’s not the Covid-19 Bill. It was an omnibus bill that included the Covid package, but also included the defense appropriations and the intelligence appropriations bill, which included in it, in the comments section, a request that information be provided by some agencies from the government regarding this phenomena. This request was put into that bill by Marco Rubio, primarily because he was briefed by some witnesses to the phenomena and Christopher Mellon, who has been meeting with people on the Hill. So that got him interested, he decided to take some action, so he put this language in, possibly with the assistance of some ranking member, senator Mark Warner. That was a significant thing: it put a 180-day deadline from the signing of the bill, which will be around June 25th, it outed the fact that the Office of Naval Intelligence created a United Aerial Phenomena Task Force, which I don’t think a lot of people knew, so that was very interesting. All of this, by the way, is part of a larger picture unfolding. And the CIA, which has released documents in the past, released some more news primarily because John Greenwald, who has been gathering documents on this subject for 20 years, announced that a huge amount of documents were being made available in searchable form on his Black Vault website. A lot of these came from the Department of Defense, which had released a DVD disc of digital files claiming that that was all that they had. Now, don’t even think about believing that. It is not true. There is no way that the files that have been released by the CIA, off and on over the last forty years, are everything that they have. What you get are “these are the files that we are willing to release. These are all the files, perhaps, that are declassified and available.” But the files that are still classified are not available. So I want to clarify that because people are constantly getting the wrong impression about how the government deals with this issue. But it was notable. It’s notable that the day before the inauguration of the 45th President they released 970,000 files to the Internet that had been available but not easily; you had to go to the archives. The CIA has been taking measures that show its being constructive with respect to getting information out about this issue, which means they’re trying to get on the right side of history, and that’s important. But the reason that they’re doing that is because there have been developments that indicate that sufficient support for ending the Truth Embargo on the extraterrestrial presence issue is now amalgamated within the Military Intelligence Complex and they are making maneuvers to get in the right position, on the right side of history, as I said, because disclosure, confirmation of this issue, I think, is imminent, which of course will be a huge event in the history of humanity, but first it will be preceded by Congressional hearings, which I expect to happen this year.
EM - You mentioned Senator Marco Rubio. I read a quote that the reason he took so much interest in the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena program was his concerns that China or Russia or another adversary had made technological leaps that allowed them to create craft that can perform these maneuvers that our pilots have caught on film that we can’t replicate. If we are in fact so close to the Technological Singularity isn’t it entirely reasonable to believe that a human scientist has discovered a radical form of air travel that Americans have not?
SB - Reasonable? No, not even close. We don’t have that technology. Some of the performance characteristics that have been revealed of late by the To The Stars Academy and the on-camera footage were seen in craft sixty years ago. So, no. As far as the concerns about this technology, or any advanced technology, originating in China or Russia, that’s been around for a very long time. There’s nothing new about that. But it is a point that’s being raised during this transition process underway with members of Congress and so forth in order to find a politically appropriate means to get the hearings started. The hearings on the ET issue, which are coming, are going to be focused on the National Security aspect of it, which includes the possibility that this kind of tech has gotten into the hands of China or Russia. The crashes of ET vehicles that have occurred in the United States are not limited to the United States. There have been crashes in other countries. Other countries could have been working on these technologies in their classified programs, as we have been, since 1947. Is that what prompted Rubio to do this, though? I think that he put this language in because he sees this coming and he wants to be on the right side of this issue. It’s a politically astute move. Not so risky for him because he wasn’t up for re-election this go ‘round and they put a 180-day deadline on that, so the information’s not going to be coming in until the next term. So good on him; that’s fine. Any members of Congress who want to get on the right side of this issue, I encourage them to start this process.
EM - Now do you believe that the American government or another Earthbound government has an existing relationship with an extraterrestrial delegation at this time?
SB - “Believe” is not a word I like to use. Am I convinced? No, I have not seen the evidence confirming that. There are a lot of rumors, speculations, and generally it’s a very significant exopolitical topic, so any little thing that turns up that might imply that is embraced aggressively by a number of people; and I understand that, but it hasn’t been confirmed. It’s close to being confirmed. There is some evidence that needs to be considered, but in a court of law there’s no way that I would vote that there has, in fact, been formal engagement between governments and ETs.
EM - Do you think in the near future the courting of friendships or collaborations with extraterrestrial delegations will be the new arms race for the International stage?
SB - Well if it is it would be another act of unbelievable stupidity on the part of world leaders. The scenario I hope to see, and perhaps the most likely, is that we will soon have full Congressional hearings that will lead to President Biden confirming the extraterrestrial presence which will lead to virtually every other nation’s head of state confirming the extraterrestrial presence. There will be more hearings in which information will come out. That will be an interesting time, an extraordinary time, actually, and this will go on for a couple of years, after which the world will be pretty much “up to speed” on what is known about this phenomena. And I think, at that point, you’re going to have open contact with these ETs and that will involve, without question, direct communication with governments. What comes from that will be the opposite of an arms race. Again, I’m speculating, based on 24 years and some knowledge, but nevertheless this is a speculation. I believe that one of the key agendas of the modern era of the extraterrestrial presence is that we became a nuclear nation in 1947 and we’ve dropped bombs on human beings, we’ve built thousands of more bombs, and that is a serious issue for them because we are also closing in on interstellar technology; in other words, we’re close in our physics to figuring out the workaround for relativity and the problems that relativity theory places on interstellar travel. Which means that we will soon be in a position to load atomic bombs on interstellar craft and head on out into the galaxy to see what we can see, and that ain’t going to happen. So I believe the open contact, which is the inevitable end to this process, will result in an extraterrestrial, I’ll say, “request” that we get rid of our nuclear weapons or we will not be able to go interstellar. This sounds pretty much science fiction, it sounds a little out there, but in fact it is a very logical conclusion to what began in 1947 and has been developing, and escalating, for the last seventy years. So that’s my scenario.
Now, if on the other hand, we take the hard line and say “No, we’re sorry. Now that you’re here we’re going to build more weapons to defend against you.” That would be stupidity on a level that’s really hard to measure. Already that are a number of people involved in the transition that’s on the way, including people who have been witnesses brought forward by the To The Stars Academy, as well as people in the To The Stars Academy, that this idea that we have to defend ourselves against these extraterrestrials is, fortunately or unfortunately, unwise. Meaning, we can’t win. In other words, if you’re going to defend yourself against something you need to have a reasonable chance of succeeding, and we have no chance of succeeding in defending ourselves against interstellar civilizations. So we have to plan to deal with that; to interact with them and hope that they are not destructive like we are. And that’s it. There isn’t another option. There isn’t a “Well, we’ll just keep building our weapons and one day we’ll be able to hold them off.” No! They can annihilate us any time they want without even having to use advanced physics. It wouldn’t be that hard. We are little children dealing with advanced civilizations with technology we haven’t even invented. So that’s the reality and that’s what people need to hear in the coming months and my job as an activist is to make sure they hear that scenario, that perspective, because I suspect that within the Congress and within the military there will be those that are going to be unable to resist the other perspective. And let’s get it out. Let people stand up and say “We can defend ourselves against interstellar civilizations and here’s my plan! 46 trillion dollars, anti-gravity weapons, anti-matter weapons, blah blah blah!” Let them do it, but I’m going to be giving another perspective and I hope others will do the same. That is the reality we’re facing. Some people are scared of it; I am not. I am far more scared of human beings and what they’re capable of doing right now than I am of extraterrestrials and what they’re capable of doing.
EM - And that was actually precisely my point. My concern isn’t that we would try to make our weaponry superior or on-par with them but that, on the international stage, it won’t be Who Has the Best, Most Powerful Weapons but rather Who Has the Best, Most Powerful Alien Friends. If, and when, these visitors make themselves known to us won’t every major military power rush to put them in their good graces to wield World Power on the international stage?
SB - This is a perfectly reasonable question and a sophisticated question, I might add; you’ve done a lot of homework on this issue.
EM - Thank you.
SB - One of the biggest challenges for anybody trying to address this issue, even for somebody who’s been at it for two decades like I have, and I have colleagues who’ve been at it longer than that, is the built-in problem of anthropomorphism. We’re human beings. We go back a long ways, about two hundred thousand years. We have a very high opinion of ourselves. We are not currently aware of any other living being, any animal, smarter than we are. So in dealing with the extraterrestrial phenomena from the beginning it’s natural that we’re constantly going to look at it from the perspective of being a human being. It’s called anthropomorphism. We think that they’re going to act like we act, that they view the Universe like we view it. So given how we have dealt with conflict and geopolitics and have thousands of wars and killed hundreds of millions if not billions of people over the last ten thousand years it’s hard for us not to think that that’s what they’re going to do. Not necessarily. In fact one could make a case that if they did and still do conduct themselves as humans do they wouldn’t be here in the first place; they would’ve destroyed each other or themselves. We are an incredibly violent species, still. We may improve on that; I think we will. But the evidence doesn’t indicate that the extraterrestrials are violent, nor is there any evidence that they’re here to play a game of Risk with the planet, carving it up and giving special favors to one group over another. If they wanted to divide us, conquer us, control us, they could do that any time they wish. However, they’d be insane. I mean, any species that would want to manage or control the human race would have to be out of their minds. So, I’m not too worried about that and it’s one of the things I’ll be talking about as I continue to do a very substantial amount of media is “Anthropomorphism, folks.” They’re not human. They’re from another planet. They evolved over billions of years like we did but from an entirely different, I guess you could say, set of circumstances. So hold your fire, stay calm, let things unfold, see how things go before we start putting up barricades and carving up our new friends into opposing factions.
EM - I like that. Darcy Weir, what is next for you?
DW - Well, I have another documentary featuring Stephen Bassett coming out in March, on March 13th, and that actually focuses on the history of the crop circle issue. Some people may have in their minds that the crop circles that have been found in places like Wiltshire are simply manmade and to be honest there have been quite a few man-made crop circles found there but that’s not the whole truth. That’s not the complete story. The complete story is that every year there is messaging that is brought to this place in the world, and it has been found in other places in the world, but the most authentic messages we’ve found that could be extraterrestrial related seem to be showing up there in England. We do a top-to-bottom coverage of that and the best evidence that the most incredible messages sent were not man-made and I’m really happy to have Stephen Bassett a part of that project. His message is clear and important and very logical and grounded. You may have followed some other information in this field, this phenomenon, and there’s a lot of noise, a lot of disinformation, a lot of fantastical, interesting stuff out there but I really like the approach that Stephen Bassett takes which is grounded, logical. As insane as this phenomenon may seem to some folk in the mainstream that don’t pay attention to it, he really puts a sane spin on it all and I’m looking forward to releasing more content that shares his side of the story.
EM - One last question and this is for Stephen: If the extraterrestrial delegation truly is trying to intervene and save humanity from its own folly, from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, being the only government that has actually used nuclear weapons on an opposing force, wouldn’t America be the biggest threat to human life on the world stage in the eyes of a passive observer?
SB - I’m going to have to alter the premise that you just presented. First of all, I do not believe the extraterrestrials are here to save the human race. I think they would regret if we destroyed ourselves. Which is not quite true. We could have a full out nuclear war, the whole enchilada, and there would be some humans that would survive. The planet would be awful, it would be Hell on Earth, the classic phrase, the Living End of the Dead, but the human race would continue. It would be set back hundreds, maybe a thousand years, and over time would slowly try to make some progress. So it’s not that humans would be gone. But modern civilization, they would regret seeing that destroyed, because it took a long time to get to where we are and able to do the things we do. But there is no indication whatsoever that they would stop a nuclear war. They’ve tampered with our nuclear weapons on many occasions, and we have plenty of witnesses to that, and I assure you that’s going to be a huge focus of the coming hearings. They turned them off. Sometimes they turned them on, to scare us. But mostly it’s viewed as a message; that’s the way a lot of the witnesses I’ve talked to see it. It was a message: “We can turn these on. We can turn these off. Why have you got them? What’s the point?” Okay, so there’s that. But the idea that the fundamental goal is to save us from ourselves, not so sure. In other words, if we launch these nuclear weapons there are those who think that they’ll stop them in mid-air, and that is a dangerous assumption. I don’t think they will.
So, what’s the connection? The connection I’ve already stated. It seems a little out there but in fact it’s solidly obvious. Think about it: you are an advanced civilization. You move among the stars, have for thousands of years. It’s a big galaxy, a big universe. Say some planet way off in the boondocks, maybe hidden by some gas clouds, develops an advanced civilization like ours and nobody’s ever aware that it existed, and eventually develops atomic technology, atomic weapons, maybe anti-matter weapons, and eventually it develops interstellar travel. Like humans, it believes the universe should be Free Carry, so just to be safe it puts its nuclear weapons on its interstellar craft and heads on out to the galaxy to see what it can see. So they can turn up anywhere, blindsiding one of these other civilizations, get panicky and start tossing nuclear weapons around. You’re not going to let that happen. If you are aware of such a civilization you may visit them on and off for tens or hundreds of thousands of years; that’s fine, they’re not a threat. But we’re a threat. Finally, after the three billion years it took for humans to get where they are, we are now a threat to them and that is a significant thing. And it’s our good luck because we’re going to be here to see what’s going to go down and no other generation has. You have to intervene at that point. You cannot allow the human civilization to go into space with nuclear weapons and interstellar drive. So what I think we should expect to see is “You want to be involved with us? You want to be in a relationship with us?” They have alliances out there, we know they have alliances out there because there are a number of species that are working together; we have proof of that. “You want to be in an alliance with us, maybe a junior partner? You have to get rid of your nukes. Not because we’ll be terribly upset if you kill yourself, but rather because you cannot bring them out into our world. So get rid of the nukes and you can have interstellar travel. Get rid of the nukes and you could be involved with us. Maybe even get some technology from us.” That, I think, is the message that’s coming. Not to protect us from ourselves; that would be a beneficial side effect.
So what we’re headed for is what I call “The Post-Disclosure World.” It will be the most profound time in human history. It will be the most complex set of variables and circumstances any heads of state have ever faced. Ever. Since the dawn of time. In other words, a very challenging time where every conceivable aspect of human life is going to have to be reconsidered. I hope to live to be involved in it for a while, to be part of it. But it’s going to take the full engagement of every nation, every head of state, every government, and as many people who want to be involved as possible. It’s going to be great, I believe. I am optimistic. It’s going to be fine. We’re not going to be taken over, we’re not going to be managed, but we are going to have to make some very important decisions about our future as an interstellar or space-faring civilization.
EM - Well I think that is a perfect note to end on. Is there anything else that you guys would like to add for our readers at Ain’t It Cool News about the documentary?
DW - I guess just keep an open mind and make sure that you wonder about what's going on around the planet and how if we’re ever going to fix the planet and go into the stars how we have to treat each other before we’re able to do that.
EM - And when is this documentary available?
DW - It’s out now on all the streaming platforms. Check it out. It’s a fun, short little doc and I think it has a good message.
EM - Thank you both. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today.
So, yeah, I really enjoyed the chat. Not so much as a scientist as a philosopher. I think the concept of humankind coming face-to-face with something beyond its own capacity will reveal more about us than it will about those aliens or gods or superpowered beings. Stephen really seemed energized to talk about his beliefs... sorry, I mean convictions, and I appreciated the veracity with which he spoke. I do believe it’s arrogant to insist that just because an American scientist hasn’t achieved a technological breakthrough in radical air travel that no other nation has a chance to do something beyond our comprehension. Didn’t Russia launch Sputnik while we were still throwing rocks at the sky? I also think he has to consider more carefully how abysmally stupid human beings are on a grand scale, and how politicians are literally the worst of us; that they’ll invariably screw up any meeting we have with an extraterrestrial delegation by trying to either kill or fuck or enslave it. Anyway, that’s my conviction.
As for the documentary, I have to be honest and say that I did not care for it. If you have an hour to spare you can watch it, and if you have 65 minutes you could probably make it. Seriously, I have iMovie on my Mac, too, Darcy, and I recognized your fonts and transitions in an instant. In regard to the footage of UFO activity around the volcano in question, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps it has to do with the horizon and any of the 5,000 satellites orbiting the earth darting across the sky or slipping behind the volcano. It’s like you’ve never seen a photo of a traveler holding the Eiffel Tower or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s called perspective. Stephen Bassett’s interview footage and the well-documented work of Jaime Maussan add some much-needed credibility to the proceedings, but the whole affair is so cheap that I couldn’t give the effort any credence.
VOLCANIC UFO MYSTERIES is available now on all major streaming platforms.
Until next time, stay safe and Watch The Skies!
-McEric, aka Eric McClanahan-
