A conversation with UFOlogist Alan Steinfeld on how believers and skeptics think about UFOs 

"Maybe the atomic bomb ripped a hole in the space-time continuum." - I'm done. LMAO

*Alan Steinfeld:* "I'm a skeptic just like you..." 👽👽👽 *Inigo Montoya:* "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." 🤺🤺🤺

I'm an electrical engineer with a background in semiconductor device design (VLSI/ASIC logic designer). The idea that a society without a knowledge of the physics and engineering of semiconductors and chip manufacturing and design could reverse engineer such devices is preposterous in the extreme!!!! You should have someone on who knows about large scale semiconductor devices to talk about how hard it would be to reverse engineer such a thing without knowledge of the physics and operation and without scanning electron microscopes and advanced chemistry, along with advanced digital design techniques and powerful computers.

This is excruciating to watch. Dr. Shermer is a sage for enduring this with such grace.

Kudos to Michael for being *so* gracious in the face of so much wibble.

Lots of respect to Michael for this one. I was shaking my head so much in disbelief during this interview I threw out my neck.

Wow that was wild. I love Steinfeld's passion for his subject, genuine enthusiasm and so on, but I interpret his story as offering a case study in how espoused skepticism and exploration of subjects can gradually morph into dogmatically held but illusory beliefs even though one still thinks (incorrectly) they're a 'skeptic' and they still adopt and portray such an identity.

So Steinfeld had some weird experiences as a youth and then went on a lifelong journey of confirmation seeking for his preconceived notions. Steinfeld offers nothing truly substantive here - just lots of woo, anecdotes, and personal incredulity. That being said, I love Shermer's podcasts and this was entertaining for what it was.

The difference between a skeptic and a true-believer who claims others should "have an open mind" is that it is the true-believer who actually has a closed mind as absolutely zero evidence brought to bear against their belief will alter their opinion. A skeptic, however, will easily and happily change his mind once sufficient evidence is produced. However, I've noticed a great deal of supposed "skeptics" who fall precariously into the "true-believer" category nowadays.

He looks ten years older than Shermer at least.

Dr. shermer,I always considered you a closed minded debunker,but after this show,I'm willing to reconsider.I saw a flying saucer in1974,with five other people.It was large,silent,and had no visible means of support.It looked metallic,and had lots of lights around itThe whole experience lasted approx half an hour.It was in our sight for a good twenty minutes.Inhave been an aircraft buff since I was a small child.I could identify everything the US military flew.In Savannnah in the 1960 s,and 1970 s,you could see every thing the military flew. Thank you for the video,and the presentation

The woo woo meter is off the dial. I can’t be anymore polite than that.

You're a skeptic until you experience it yourself, and then you become a believer. Fortunately, I am in the latter group, and it's all so amazing, and puts life at a different level, what's considered reality completely changes. We're all one with the universe/ global life/ dimensions / everything, separation and duality are myths, and dont exist, and it's all very wonderful. Thank you always for great discussions in this topic - love it !!

How can we believe someone who talks about Uri Geller remote viewing when he was a magician who performed tricks..

I think it would be far more interesting for Michael Shermer to interview the sober former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Christopher Mellon for his position on Unidentified Ariel Phenomena, rather than the flaky though charming Alan Steinfeld.

Alan this interview is incredible and you are an incredible individual, the more you speak on your interest the more interest I have in your speaking. keep up the good work, let's pray you get that award for your literary effort, " Making Contact."

The first time humans looked up to the sky they've been seeing UFO's. Nothing new.

32mins in, the woo woo meter blowup at remote viewing. Tho I’m highly enjoying this episode.

That was fun; Star trek was the first show I was able to stay up late to watch. Right after Wild Kingdom. I still remember the jingle from the commercials in between for mutual of Omaha insurance. Good times. You got to interview Rupert Sheldrake soon.

Thanks for a very great show.From someone who adheres to something that some call Spirit Science(or similar) i am glad to hear your version of what you coined Sciencetuality.Somehow that term makes total sense.And Alan Steinfeld was great on his own and your cooperation and dialogue together was truly admirable.Hello from the other end of SoCal,Inland Empire.See you all in a month or so after the UAPTF report.

Dr. Shermer needs to have a conversation with that guy from Ancient Aliens with the crazy hair on his podcast

It's not clear how a consensus on a definition of exactly what a sceptic might be could be arrived at. One thing is for sure though, Steinfeld ain't a sceptic. But of course he makes a ridiculous claim to be one.

Big respect for Michael Shermer doe to his openness. What he dose is really really important

This is such a fascinating conversation! Glad to know Shermer is open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Science cannot be : could it , should it , maybe this maybe that ??? Also I always say that we can not consider every possibility but must identify what it is the most likely and most fact based process and observable and testable !!

1956? I'm skeptical of that right off the bat.

The following excerpt is taken from: The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains by Ernest Wallace & E. Adamson Hoebel (1952 / softcover edition) p. 198 Although the Thunderbird myth was common to most Plains Indians, the Comanches have given it variation. They had evidence other than thunder and rain of the existence of a great bird. They told of a spot on the upper Red River where the grass remained permanently burned off over a space having the shape of a huge bird with outspread wings. They claimed that the Thunderbird once alighted there. A hunter shot and wounded a large bird which fell to the ground, but because of its large size, he was afraid to go close enough to kill it. He returned to camp for help. When his party approached the ravine where the bird had fallen, they heard thunder and were blinded by terrific flashes of lightning coming from the ravine. While attempting to approach nearer, one of the hunters was struck dead by a flash. Realizing that their victim was the Thunderbird, the rest became frightened and fled back to camp. To me, this has a very strong UFO theme but the authors never made the connection, at least not in the text. Perhaps -- assuming the idea even occurred to them -- they thought they'd be laughed at if they stated it. Are we being visited by aliens from other worlds? I don't know. I am a skeptic and an atheist. Having said that, I have had some extremely strange experiences in my life. I will state one story here (there are others): Back in the late 80s I had a girlfriend (a few years ago I found out she passed away from cancer in 2010). One day I found out that she had an interest in Ouija boards (yes, a stupid game made in a factory... what kind of powers could such a game have? Well, read on). We had one in my house, a birthday gift from many years ago that had pretty much been kept on a top-closet shelf and all but forgotten about. Again, this was in the late 80s before the Internet and Google Maps. We asked the board if anyone was out there to make contact with. Unbelievably, the board responded (the planchette moved) and spelled out that the person we were talking to was a warlock (not a spirit, but a living male witch). We asked for its location. It spelled out a specific address, which if it existed, would be about 15-20 minutes from my girlfriend's house. We figured, What the heck, let's go for a drive and see if it is a real place (it would have been so much easier if we had the Internet back then). Well, the house existed. When we got there, we could not believe that the address was real, but neither of us was willing to get out of the car and knock on the door -- looking back, I wish we had. We sat there for a little while just looking. It was so strange... After all, what were the odds that such an address would turn out to be real? When we got back to her place and sat down with the board again, the first thing it spelled out was, "I saw you outside my window." This is not a joke. This happened. My girlfriend got very scared (freaked out would be more accurate) and didn't want to play anymore. I did not move the planchette. My girlfriend did not move it. Yes, it's just my word. I know it happened. I will never be able to explain this event. I still have the board... stored in the top shelf of my bedroom closet (but not the same house from my childhood). I have not opened the box in many, many years.

Congratulations Micheal. Watched a few of these recently; very interesting guests, subject matter plus you make a great host etc Pete Woodroffe Music Pete Woodroffe Music Pete

Thank you Dr. Shermer for this video. I wanted to bale out at remote viewing but your patience in the face of pseudoscience and a lack of critical thinking skills is something to be studied.

Alan, you are only on the 'edge' because you moved the edge a long way already into crazy town. You can claim you are a skeptic but you are not.

The speeds and accelerations reported by the Navy are way too extreme to be "terrestrial". And given that "it" had no visible source of propulsion... we can jump to "god of the gaps" kind of explanation or just say "hmmmm - very interesting". ... or follow the money or power."

I think Michael Shermer displayed some extraordinary patience with fake Deepak here... He tried hard to give credit for anything he could but the other guy is really not a skeptic...

Michael, you need a “skip ad” button.

I'm from Yelm WA and parents go to JZ Knights "school" , stepdad was 2nd in command. I'd love to expose them on Michael's podcast one day.

Shermer never mentioned that the tic tax and other UAP’s were also locked on radar. It can’t be the camera, they were also looking at them. Reports are they saw them every day in air space for years.

Michael! I'd love to see you chat with Whitley Strieber.

The burden of proof sorts all of this out.

I'm sorry to say, but Shermer is guilty of strawmanning the debate concerning the veracity of claims pertaining to UAPs.The skeptic dictum of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" has been met on multiple occasions, particularly with the USS Nimitz incident and the recovery of alloys that appear to be irreplicable. I'm a huge fan of the show but I feel that Michael is lacking in integrity where this subject is concerned. Why does he only speak to loonies like that guy? Why doesn't he speak to solid people like Commander Fravor, Christopher Mellon, Jacques Vallée or the then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? It pains me to say this, but I feel that he's acting in bad faith. I didn't believe in the phenomenon before, but the recent stuff that's come out is truly mind blowing and from the actual US government.

Kudos to you Michael ! I have most of your books and have been following your great work ! I love how balanced calm and logical non combative and rational but always so kind and accommodating and friendly ! Great job ! Thank you ! Take a look at thunderfoots analysis on RU-vid also #thunderf00t

Such a fun conversation Mike. We need more of this in the world right now. Thanks!

Steinfeld is flat out wrong about Fravor being the one who took any of the videos. The Gimbal and Go Fast vids were taken more than a decade after Fravor's encounter.

I want to believe!

10 minutes and my mind is drifting off.not a good sign..

Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo, someone called an ambulance?

Michael, you need to get Klee Irwin on- please!

🕊

Ah snap. Next Shermer will be interviewing Hat Man experiencers. I'll tell you what. I've seen a Hat Man and I've seen an orb and I'm not half as crazy as some of the guests Shermer has had on over the years. History is always the ultimate judge.

I wish I had the same childlike "gullibleism" as steinfeld. But he's way too far away from the real world to take seriously. But he seems like a lovely guy. But way to gullible. Michael must have held back a lot for this one. Hats off to that😊

Shermer! Love you buddy

What about the chunk of brain Jackie climbed over the back of the car to get?

Alan Steinfeld is the type of guy to be appointed as science advisor to the Trump government.

Here's a couple of RU-vid channels who debunk the recent UFO videos: ru-vid.com ru-vid.com Also in the book "A Thousand Brains" Jeff Hawkins makes a strong case that we have only had the capability for the past 100 years out of 3.5 Billion years of Earth's existence so there needs to be a new term in Drake's equation.

Shermer please have Dr Edwin C May on, Program Director of StarGate Remote Viewing Program. He is a staunch atheist, Naturalist and Physicist and spends his interviews defending Naturalism and is most critical towards his own paraphycology peers ,culture thier Methodology and thier anti-material mentalities . Yet he claims a model found for Precognition that correlates with Entropy, and claims some of his best discoveries are still classified top secret.

Queue Ozzy Osborne “crazy train” for theme music !!

👍

You tube channel: Eric Dubay....video: LEVEL

Haha he mentioned uri geller...seriously...

Shermer and West are now the Conspiracy Nut Casses and I think it's hilarious 😅

So much confabulation! Fravor didn't say nor did his group, say anything about "Fleet of them" that was from a video taken on the east cost a decade later "gimbal" footage.

Thank you, Michael another great video.

I wonder why most of these sightings happens on USA

Dude believes in Ramtha. You'd be better off gardening.

This is the only “conspiracy” that has a real possibility of being true.

Toooo much woowoo for me.

Not meaning to pull rank, but by their birth-years I was already into whatever film or bit of written word there was on the subject that was available to me in the library in the 50s. And every new book would repeat many of the same stories, reinforcing beliefs, but never digging very deeply into the stories' origins. They certainly had me convinced. Long story short, I think Alan is a sweet yet rather innocent guy who can't (to use one example) see through the Corso "testimony" as a steaming pile of nonsense. But, I appreciate his humanism. Sedona, eh? Wow.

This guy is in the Twilight zone

Just going to grab some tin foil, then I'll strap myself in for 2 hours of fun!

Zechariah 5:1 About Demons & UFO's

Mr Shermer is assuming that earth is the highest authority and that earthlings have the highest development and he is assuming those from other worlds have to somehow be better than humans, would that be correct? Mr Shermer is assuming that those from other worlds takes the time to come to earth on the way earthlings travel, would that be correct? Mr Shermer do you know what you are? Do you know who you are? Do you know where you come from? Do you know how earthlings came to earth? Do you know what happens to you when you take your last breath on this earth? Going back to you know who and what you are? Do you know about this Roswell video? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AFk8qKO-Z50.html

The Space Force may just save our asses.

Hal Puthoff! Let's do this.

What in the woo woo is this?!

Good lord, Neither one of you guys has the story straight. Fravor didn't take the video, it was the wso from the second flight that took it.

i'm a skeptic cos jesus said

Skeptics are just scared it could be true

🛸 😐 ☕ 🖖

There's a reason this channel is called 'Skeptic'.

Seriously?

Surprise Michael lends Credence to the hard problem of consciousness! Usually he says that we're natural Duelists, but all the evidence is in favor of naturalism! Even though we instinctually think in terms of mind and body, all the evidence says that everything in the universe is made up of the same physical stuff Anyway I don't think there's any hard problem of consciousness. It can be difficult to conceptualize consciousness. But it can be difficult to conceptualize mathematics, calculus, music theory, engineering, lots of things are conceptually difficult, physics!!! That doesn't mean that we don't have tons of evidence that humans are just really complex organisms and organisms are made up of atoms

Entire first 15 minutes proves that UFOlogy is a religion 🤦🏻

One I'm blown away a guys writes a book about ufos and doesn't know who Mick is... and two,.. damn it Michael!... you butchered Micks analysis by confabulated it from 2 different videos.

AS skipping daily meds and this is the outcome. Sad and laughable atthe same time.

Michael, stop saying "throothes", it's "truths"

I have to come clean. I am a time traveling reptilian alien from an alternate universe. I have come to your planet to discredit alien conspiracies because, I was ordered to by the Lizard Emperor. I can’t live this lie anymore and Evils didn’t die, he went back to our universe. Also he really doesn’t like shitty impersonators, that really gets under his scales.

An advertisement disguised as entertainment disguised as learning.

I wish i could tell my sleep paralysis stories which i swear were very real, and get away with calling my self a skeptic. Personal experience and eye witness testimony is a very low bar for the kind of claims this guy is making. Just saying!

It sounds like it is more likely that he had train or or other experience . When I listen to him I immediately wonder if he is sane , stable or just a fantasist . He just rambles. Most of the things about backward engineering can be disproven. . He sounds unstable and delusional . This borders more on mysticism and impulse . Like religion we tend to fantasize to get away from our mundane life abs explain the unknown . I am sure this gentleman believes sincerely , but seems searching for explanation without real science or evidence. He seems like a very nice and kind person , but this is all speculation !!

So . . . Michael is a part of Forever. What does that mean ? Why would anyone say that, and how could they say it (twice) with such conviction ? How does anyone take Alan Steinfeld serious when he bubbles statements like that out ? Of course that wasn't the only thing he spewed out Deepak-style. He talks like a fool and believes with Kindergarten mentality. Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+Anecdote+ does not equal evidence.

I feel like I'm at Disneyland, on some slow moving floating ride aloft of this guy's stream of consciousness. It is weird and a bit creepy, somewhat goofy, but seemingly harmless.

I don't know...Big fan of this channel...However this old, pleasant hippie lost me after that distant viewing crap...or anything else for that matter...Its like Shermer talking to an overly imaginative child...

It hasn’t been 10 years for all of these videos, one was in 2016 I think. Micheal doesn’t even really know about much of what he brings up.

Oh look, another podcast that's a 2-hour commercial for a book. Are there any podcasts today that aren't just advertising vehicles for the publishing industry? They've all been turned into 2-hour ads for books (and ones that aren't even that interesting.)

Michael could get probed and still say “well, it was just me. So we need more probes that I am present for”.

What I learnt from this interview: Ufologists have a very low level of credulity, yet at the same time are too smart to believe in flat earth or creationism.

This is so unbearably cringe I can't even watch it all. Michael should have stopped him at 00:45 seconds on his first completely false statement that he or anyone has evidence. There is no evidence. Get off my podcast... grifter.

Re=hashing the same old stuff.