Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5stjbueE9Sg
So I wanted to clarify a quote that I made, that was taken somewhat out of context, mostly because the context wasn't available. But the quote appeared most recently in Newsweek, where it said,
"One prolific debunker, Mick West dismissed the interest by members of Congress like Reid before and Rubio now, with 'they're just UFO fans', he told The New Yorker, they've been convinced there's something to it. And so are trying to push for disclosure. Now, this is actually something I said. And it's something that's actually in the New Yorker. And in the New Yorker, if you read that article, which I recommend, there's a little bit more context in that a former Pentagon official conceded that "there were a lot of government people who are enthusiasts on the subjects who watch the History Channel and eat this stuff up 24 seven", but he didn't think that "the current mood was set by a small cadre of true believers".
But really the context here is that I'm not trying to dismiss the entire field of UAP studies and the concern about UAPs because what UAPs are from a military perspective are simply things that are unidentified. This includes unidentified planes and unidentified drones that go into military airspace, or just things that pilots see when they're up in the sky doing their usual things, and they see something off in the distance, or sometimes something quite close, that they can't identify. This is a problem. It can be a serious national security issue. And I think it's something that needs to be studied. And it needs to be something that needs to be improved, the situation needs to be improved. If there are failures of technology or training or personnel that mean that we're not identifying things, and those failures need to be addressed. If there is, in fact, some new technology out there by a foreign adversary, then that needs to be discovered. And that needs to be revealed. If there are simply things like sneaky drones going around sneaking into our bases or being launched from submarines near battle groups and going over those battle groups, that is something that needs to be addressed. That is something that is a very real concern, and should be looked into.
What I'm referring to when I say they're just UFO fans, isn't that what I'm referring to is the interest in the idea that they might be aliens. I think this is a idea that really isn't taken very seriously within the US government, within the military and within the scientific community, and with good reason, because there isn't really any very good evidence for it. And I think when people like Rubio and Harry Reid, entertain this idea, which they do very, very gently, they don't really lean into it very much. When they do entertain it. It is somewhat prompted by the fact that they are somewhat UFO fans, Harry Reid, especially we know Harry Reid is big [friends] with Bigelow who is a local businessman who's very into UFOs. Marco Rubio, I don't know so much, but he does seem to want to entertain the idea and you know, it runs well with certain people, it's a popular story. People like to talk about UFOs. And so it's something he can talk about. He's a bit of a UFO fan, but that's not what I'm talking about.
So if I'm a little bit dismissive of people and dismissive of their interest in UFOs as aliens, which I don't think is very well founded. I'm not at all dismissive of the interest in the UAP idea, the UAP phenomena, the fact that sometimes there are things in the sky that are unidentified, this obviously is a very real issue, and is something that should be looked into. So I'm not dismissive of that. I'm just dismissive of aliens.
References:
Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/marco-rubi...us-seriously-investigating-encounters-1590554
The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously