KABOOM! The Explosive UFO Story That Changed The World - Guest : Ralph Blumenthal (PART 1)

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WEAPONIZED with Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp 51 min 4 speakers 8 chapters transcribed
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What is the bombshell UFO story published in 2017?

Ralph Blumenthal 0:09
There are some key dates, you know, 1947 when Kenneth Arnold and Roswell both happened. 1969, the so-called end of government studies when Project Blue Book was closed down. And 2017, when the New York Times uncorked a front page blockbuster story by Ralph Blumenthal, Leslie Kane and Helene Cooper. about secret government investigations into UFOs.
Leslie Kean 0:32
We had an exclusive source, basically, who gave us slides that were shown to, you know, within the Pentagon, showing or naming, actually mentioning recovery, material recoveries of UFO remains, retrievals. This phenomenon does not lend itself to documentation for whatever reason.
George Knapp 0:53
You started to answer it, but I'd love to hear more. What did you leave out that you knew back in 2017 that you didn't have space to write about?
Ralph Blumenthal 1:13
This is Weaponized. I'm George Knapp, joined by my colleague, Jeremy Corbell. Jeremy, how you doing?

How did the New York Times cover UFOs before 2017?

George Knapp 1:17
I'm good. How you doing, man?
Ralph Blumenthal 1:19
Good. You know, as we have talked about many times, UFOs and big time journalism are kind of like oil and water. They don't really mix, or at least that's the way it's been for decades. I mean, major news media outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, CBS News have been overtly hostile to UFOs over the years and to UFO researchers and to UFO claims. But something happened in December of 2017, which kind of threw a monkey wrench into that whole thing when the New York Times ran this blockbuster front page story about a secret government-funded investigation into UFOs. Included in that story was the now-famous Tic Tac case that you and I had discussed on the air prior to December of 2017.
Ralph Blumenthal 2:04
Former Navy ace David Fravor was a primary witness for the time story, and it was like a hydrogen bomb went off. And there's before the Times story and after the Times story. Those are two different ages. And we are still dealing with the fallout from that explosion. Three journalists worked on that story. Of course, Helene Cooper, who was a veteran Washington correspondent.

Who were the key journalists behind the 2017 UFO article?

Ralph Blumenthal 2:26
Leslie Kane, our friend who has been researching UFOs, investigating UFO stories for a long time. And Ralph Blumenthal, who was just a veteran stalwart of the times. He'd been there for more than 40 years. I think his gravitas did a lot of the heavy lifting to get that story and make it happen. Of course, Ralph, as we know, has already been down the UFO rabbit hole for a couple of years, working on a book about Dr. John Mack. And that's a That's a name we don't hear much with all the debates about secret programs and crash retrievals and whistleblowers and all the mess in Congress. We don't hear about Dr. Mack, but he blazed a path. His story kind of gets lost in all the muck of modern ufology, but it's really an important one. Wouldn't you agree?
George Knapp 3:13
Yeah, I remember when I first started looking into the UFO subject, it really dawned on me. There was this guy named Dr. John Mack, who's head of Harvard Psychiatrics or whatever it was. And, you know, it's a guy that you could you could see was very serious and he was believable and you could trust him. And man, he looked at the aerial school encounters with the aliens.

What challenges did the journalists face in publishing the UFO story?

George Knapp 3:34
I mean, with the craft that landed or there's like 60 kids. You and I got to know a couple of the children who are now adults who are closest to what they say were the aliens, right? So that's Liesel and Salma. So shout out to Liesel and Salma. I hope to have you on Weaponize at some point. But Dr. John Mack went down there. BBC covered it. And that's when I first heard about his work coming into it. I was like, wow, let me look into this guy. And you told me. that a great book was written about his life by Ralph Blumenthal. And I thought that was so cool that he did a deep dive into this guy's history. And I really like Ralph over the years. Yes, he broke the 2017 New York Times story, and that was a huge push.
George Knapp 4:16
But just as a human being, as a reporter, as a journalist, just talking with him, he's the real deal, isn't he?

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