The Age of Disclosure film

[MapperGuy]

I had a clearance 38 levels above top secret, which is cosmic top-secret -it is the top of all of those clearances. It is for UFOs, and aliens, etc. No president has had that level, has ever been cleared for that level. Eisenhower was the closest.

My question for this guy would be "what exactly are in those 37 levels below this one you are talking about?"

For them to be 'levels' implies that you have to have a clearance at one level before you are eligible for a clearance at the next higher level.

For example you have to have a Secret clearance before you are eligible for a Top Secret clearance.
So you have to be cleared for nuclear weapons before you can be cleared for Bigfoot?
And you have to be cleared for Bigfoot before you can be cleared for Nessie?
And you have to be cleared for Nessie before you can be cleared for Gray aliens?
etc..

What 'cosmic top-secret' things are in all of those levels???

What makes knowing the 'truth' about Bigfoot a requirement for being read into knowledge of Nessie?

Reality of course is that Top Secret is the top of the heap. At that level security divisions are horizontal not vertical, as in Compartments.
You can be read into one compartment but none of the others because none of the others are necessarily a prerequisite to it.

Stacking clearance levels 38 levels deep would require sharing a tremendous amount of information to make a person eligible for the top one.

But it sounds real special to conspiracy buffs.

 

[Mendel]

You couldn't mention NRO. It is the National Reconnaissance Organization.

...but I can tell you about it.

That part is almost true.

Article:

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense which designs, builds, launches, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government.

Forming NRO was based on a recommendation on August 25, 1960 to President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a special National Security Council meeting.

The NRO was first mentioned by the press in a 1971 New York Times article. The first official acknowledgement of NRO was a Senate committee report in October 1973, which inadvertently exposed the existence of the NRO. In 1985, a New York Times article revealed details on the operations of the NRO.
Despite news coverage of NRO's existence, the United States intelligence community debated for 20 years whether to confirm the reports. The existence of the NRO was declassified on September 18, 1992, by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, as recommended by the Director of Central Intelligence.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Office

They have a website nowadays. https://www.nro.gov/

Note:

Article:

From 2019 to 2021, [David Grusch] was the representative of the NRO to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Grusch_UFO_whistleblower_claims

 

[MapperGuy]

I was going to suggest that the standard retort is that Eisenhower set up a super-duper secret program that later administrations aren't read into. Including the gang of 8 and later presidents. It's a somewhat silly mythos based on a number of very suspect sources that we've covered in other threads.

Problem with all this is that a Presidents authority ends when their successor takes the oath of office. The new guy, by simply taking that oath, is read-into absolutely everything. That does not mean they are briefed in detail on everything, or even given a list of everything they might be briefed on if they felt like listening to all those briefings. There are endless things that a President does not need to know about in the normal course, like what is the proper air pressure in the tires of a B-2 Stealth Bomber. Huge difference between the President knowing about something and the President knowing about it if they WANT TO. In most cases it would be someone in their administration that would decide they needed to be briefed and suggesting it to them.

The Presidential transition team (people from both the incoming and outgoing administrations) is responsible for identifying what the incoming one needs to be briefed on and setting them all up. They are looking at a mountain of information and making decisions, and they can't brief everything.

 

[Ann K]

Yet there is NO sudden surge in amazing magical physics defying technology that might have come from studying this information.

I think perhaps polywater ...and cold fusion ...and psi. Maybe even pyramid power.

 

[Ann K]

Stacking clearance levels 38 levels deep would require sharing a tremendous amount of information to make a person eligible for the top one.

The whole thing begins to sound like the levels of "operating thetan" in Scientology, or perhaps all the degrees of a Masonic lodge. "And if I tell you all about it, I'll have to kill you. But I'm going to tell you anyway..."

 

[John J.]

Well, there are several intelligence agencies- the Army had it, the Air Force had it, the Navy had it. And then there were several secret intelligence agencies. One that did not exist, it was so secret, was the NRO.

So secret that it didn't exist... I'm willing to believe that bit, I guess!

If we're talking about 1954, there might be a reason other than secrecy why the NRO didn't exist:
It just didn't exist. It came into being in August 1961, succeeding the Office of Missile and Satellite Systems which itself came into being in 1960:

On 31 August 1960, Secretary of the Air Force Dudley C. Sharp created the Office of Missile and Satellite Systems under the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force to coordinate Air Force, Central Intelligence Agency, Navy, and National Security Agency intelligence reconnaissance activities. On 6 September 1961, the Office of Missile and Satellite Systems became the National Reconnaissance Office, taking over all space reconnaissance programs, such as Samos and Corona.

Wikipedia, National Reconnaissance Office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Office,
see also the NRO website article "A Declassified History", https://www.nro.gov/About-NRO/history/

The NRO is mainly concerned with US reconnaissance satellites. But there weren't any artificial satellites before 1957, and no US satellites until 1958.

-This is assuming that the NRO is the National Reconnaissance Office;

You couldn't mention NRO. It is the National Reconnaissance Organization.

...and not some really secret agency called the National Reconnaissance Organization, perhaps only known to those with security clearances from, say, 35 levels above top-secret upwards.

 

[Mendel]

If we're talking about 1954

Yeah, but we're not. The NRO source is Walker reminiscing in 2000 https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/disclosure/briefing/disclosure12.htm , and he pins the origin on Eisenhower (1953-1961) and drops 1968 as a reorganisation year. So he could well be talking about the real NRO, as a core of truth, and the UFO stuff as embellishments. Misremembering what the letter O stands for feels natural in that context.

 

[MonkeeSage]

Problem with all this is that a Presidents authority ends when their successor takes the oath of office.

The 2009 Executive Order 13526 on "Classified National Security Information" also nicely demonstrates the sitting president (as the "original classification authority") has the ultimate authority to declassify, reclassify and enforce rules on classification at their own discretion. It replaced prior EOs on classification 12958 (Clinton) and 13292 (Bush).

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...rder-classified-national-security-information

 

[Mendel]

The 2009 Executive Order 13526 on "Classified National Security Information" also nicely demonstrates the sitting president (as the "original classification authority") has the ultimate authority to declassify, reclassify and enforce rules on classification at their own discretion. It replaced prior EOs on classification 12958 (Clinton) and 13292 (Bush).

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...rder-classified-national-security-information

This is a really nice source, thank you.

Section 1.4 confirms what AARO's Sean Kirkpatrick once said: they don't classify UFO stuff for being UFO stuff because there's no justification to do so.

Regarding secrecy levels:

Sec. 1.2. Classification Levels. (a) Information may be classified at one of the following three levels:

(1) "Top Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.

(2) "Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.

(3) "Confidential" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national security that the original classification authority is able to identify or describe.

(b) Except as otherwise provided by statute, no other terms shall be used to identify United States classified information.

"Cosmic top secret" is simply the NATO version of "top secret", the others are "NATO Secret" and "NATO Confidential".

 

[MonkeeSage]

interesting

 

[NorCal Dave]

"Cosmic top secret" is simply the NATO version of "top secret", the others are "NATO Secret" and "NATO Confidential".

When I first read the claims of MS Dan Morris, I figured the "Cosmic Top Secret" thing was just some fantasy he made up. I later learned NATO actually uses the rather silly sounding term. It would seem as is often the case, Morris is using known nuggets of fact and blending it into his own narrative.

Again, it would be interesting to have someone, anyone, actually ask Farah where he's getting this information, though I suppose he'd just defer to "they were very reliable, but don't want to risk their careers or even their lives, going on the record." Trust me bro.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

Interestingly, from Billy Corgan's talk with Dan Farah, he does not mention the NRO. I suppose it doesn't matter much, since the "deep state conspiracy" concept is "they are EVERYWHERE".

49:42 [Farah] So, in my film, a number of the intelligence officials I interview go on the record saying that the legacy program consists of elements of the CIA, the Air Force, the Department of Energy, and major defense contractors. Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean these entire entities are in on this. It just means elements of these different groups are in on it.

 

[Mendel]

"It just means elements of these different groups are in on it." = "you cannot falsify this claim"

 

[JMartJr]

"It just means elements of these different groups are in on it." = "you cannot falsify this claim"

But those making the claim could go /a long way towards proving it by knocking it off with the vague half-statements and -- since they are calling for disclosure -- actually disclosing what they know. WHAT elements are "in on it?" How do you know? What's your evidence?

Somehow, they never seem to do that...

 

[Ann K]

But those making the claim could go /a long way towards proving it by knocking it off with the vague half-statements and -- since they are calling for disclosure -- actually disclosing what they know. WHAT elements are "in on it?" How do you know? What's your evidence?

Somehow, they never seem to do that...

Reminds me forcibly of the McCarthy era: "Have you no sense of decency?"

 

[FatPhil]

Reminds me forcibly of the McCarthy era: "Have you no sense of decency?"

I get the feeling that that was a far deeper story than this little UFO flap. And, for want of a better word, a complete shitshow. They share the property of being based around an artifice, but - and alas this is just gut feelz based on doing my own research, yeah, I know - the reasons and motivation for the creation of that artifice are wildly different.

 

[NorCal Dave]

49:42 [Farah] So, in my film, a number of the intelligence officials I interview go on the record saying that the legacy program consists of elements of the CIA, the Air Force, the Department of Energy, and major defense contractors. Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean these entire entities are in on this. It just means elements of these different groups are in on it.

The appropriate follow up question is "How old is this supposed legacy program?" Grusch has suggested it goes back to the early 20th century. Pusalka has claimed a secret oral program going back possibly centuries. At the very least, it would have to date back to Roswell (1947) or if one buy's Vallee's Trinity UFO claims, 1945. If we go with the Italian UFO story, the US gained access to it in 1944ish(?).

So, this supposed super secret legacy program coincides with, or pre-dates, the creation of the agencies that maintain it:

Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the Air Force was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force

Amid the intensifying Cold War, the National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA, headed by a director of central intelligence (DCI).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency

The DOE was created in 1977 in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Energy

Then of course there is always the "defense contractor" smoke screen, hiding all this from everybody in government. Except of course those involved in the legacy program. Which defense contractors over the last 75 years? Many have come and gone.

EG&G was a major player at Area 51 and a majored boogy-man in the UFO world, at least back in the day. It no longer exists. Did some people inside EG&G keep all their UFO reverse engineering programs secret from the various buyers and private equity companies that bought and sold EG&G over the years?

From 1999 until 2001, EG&G was wholly owned by The Carlyle Group.


In August 2002, the defense-and-services sector of the company was acquired by defense technical-services giant URS Corporation.​

In December 2009, URS announced its decision to discontinue the use of "EG&G" as a division name.

In 2014, URS was acquired by AECOM. In January 2020, AECOM sold its Management Services division, which provides services and support to governmental clients, to the private equity firm American Securities and Lindsay Goldberg for US$2.405 billion (equivalent to $2.92 billion in 2024); the new firm was named Amentum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EG&G

That's just one former defense contractor that was supposedly part of the super secret legacy program that has managed to keep it all very secret despite multiple buy outs, mergers and it's ultimate demise.

As @Mendel noted above, the more places one can claim the program is hidden in, the more un-falsifiable the claim becomes. It's always hiding under one of the other red cups.

 

[Mendel]

As @Mendel noted above, the more places one can claim the program is hidden in, the more un-falsifiable the claim becomes. It's always hiding under one of the other red cups.

it's more like you can't being witnesses that say "there is no such program" because they're simply not aware.
And that would include the heads of these programs.

You'd think it's impossible if Elizondo hadn't run such a program: entirely of the books, and his immediate superior did not know.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

You'd think it's impossible if Elizondo hadn't run such a program: entirely of the books, and his immediate superior did not know.

In Billy Corgan's talk with Dan Farah, the claims of funding being diverted to the "legacy program" is far more than the relative chump change that Elizondo may have diverted:

29:27 [Farah] You talk about, you know, billions of dollars a year can be supposed ([Corgan] Yeah.) might might be intended to go one place and it goes somewhere else.

Multiple people have told me, you know, in my research that the number overall is more like a trillion dollars since the 40s. So, you're talking about a significant operation. A lot of people their full-time job, right?

So Congress has been kept out of loop. the White House has been kept out of loop.

The general practice in funding approvals is the larger the amount, the higher the level of approval that is required. It contradicts the notion of "people at the top" being unaware.

Any conspiracist who claims the "legacy program" is funded via sophisticated methods of fraud, also conflicts with any claims of the program having a "legal framework" to operate.

Article:

WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - For the eighth year in a row, the Pentagon has failed an annual audit, the Department of Defense said on Friday, continuing a pattern of financial accountability problems that have drawn bipartisan criticism and emerged as a campaign issue.

The Pentagon's first audit was conducted in 2018 and it consistently failed, reflecting system and accounting problems across its vast bureaucracy that have persisted.

The Department of Defense's assets are vast and decentralized, amounting to $4.65 trillion alongside $4.73 trillion in liabilities. These are located in all 50 states and thousands of sites around the world.

Since the Pentagon began auditing itself in 2018 — the last department to do so after Congress required the practice across the government in 1990 — it has solved some of its accounting problems. The department remains the only Cabinet-level agency that has never earned a clean financial report.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-eighth-audit-targets-2028-pass-pentagon-says-2025-12-19/

The Pentagon budget is beyond massive and contractors do receive a vast proportion. Fraud is a real issue. This surely provides fuel for many conspiracy theories.

Article:

Sessions Opens Hearing on the Department of Defense's Fraud Risk Management

Published: Jun 4, 2025

In 2024, DOD officials told the GAO that they didn't believe there was much fraud within their department relative to their overall spending.

Reports show that DOD spends over $1 trillion annually.

Even a small percentage of that amount is significant.

From 2017 through 2024, DOD reported about $10.8 billion in confirmed fraud.

This figure mostly relies on dollars that were recovered.

According to GAO, confirmed fraud and the amount recovered may only reflect a small fraction of the extent of fraud within DOD.

To accomplish its global mission, DOD relies on contractors for goods and services.

In fiscal year 2023, DOD reported that about $431 billion or 71 percent of total defense spending went to contracts for various products and services.

Seventy-one percent.

For years, GAO and others have reported that DOD has struggled to accurately account for the government property that contractors possess.

Source: https://oversight.house.gov/release/sessions-opens-hearing-on-the-department-of-defenses-fraud-risk-management/

Beyond the criminality, fraud carries constant risk of exposure. It Is not a smart way to fund a supposedly long-term super secret program that must evade detection, especially where there is increasing pressure due to audit failures and more sophisticated forensic accounting in response.

 

[Gary C]

IMO a chief mechanism contractors use to get away with fraud is the unlimited funding of legislators trough multiple routes. When you have the people on your government customer's oversight committee flying top cover for you, you can get away with rather a lot.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

Dr. Garry Nolan on The Good Trouble Show with Matt Ford
Jan 5, 2026

Although this discussion is titled: Dr. Garry Nolan Returns: The Plan for Disclosure WITHOUT The Government, there appears to be no plan discussed beyond progress in PR.

The discussion provides insight into Nolan's thinking in regards to AARO, skepticism and skeptics (esp. Mick West), objective news reporting, and the concept of debunking itself.

Early on, Nolan does disclose something in regards to the Age of Disclosure film, i.e. the state of ufology regarding evidence.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XP0KDTwF3U&t=298s

04:57 [Ford] And when it comes to the UAP issue as everyone knows this topic has been labeled as fringe. I mean really if you think about it from the very beginning and sort of purposefully labeled as fringe. Is the UAP narrative changing in both the general public realm and the scientific academic realm? And if if you think it has, why?

05:24 [Nolan] Oh, I certainly think it has. without doubt. I mean, you know, it began certainly, or took off with Leslie Kean's and Blumenthal's article in the New York Times, you know, subject to Lue Elizondo and Chris Melon's help getting the videos out the door. and of course the many brave pilots and whistle-blowers such as David Grusch as well, who've come forward to talk about it, you know?

And I think it's important for everybody to realize that, unfortunately at this stage these are all still anecdotes. I mean well the videos are not anecdotes of course, but many of the anecdotes such as what came out from Dan Farah's Age of Disclosure, and the story that James Fox has told about the events in (Varginha) Brazil and what I understand to be things that will be coming.

I don't know anything more than what James has been saying publicly. You know, I think those continue to keep my interest, and they keep the interest of the public.

I mean just look at what Dan Farah's film has done. It went to number one, not just for a week for all time, for you know, a downloaded program. So and of course we know that Steven Spielberg has something coming out. So the there's a drum beat.

I don't think that proves anything. But what I think it proves is that there's an acceptance for the matter that has changed. I think the posture of those who were, what I'm just going to just term them pseudo-skeptics, they're now the ones on the defensive. I mean they just seem to be screeching louder and louder.

It appears Dr Nolan is deeply displeased with AARO findings. His reasoning begins in a way that is confusing to me. The logic appears to be: You cannot conclude there is no credible evidence of ETI while some cases remain unexplained. Since some cases may always remain unexplained due to LIZ, by this logic AARO can never reach this conclusion!

11:38 [Nolan] I don't know why they're (AARO) doing that, you know, because at the same time, as they say, we found no credible evidence. I mean, evidence is either evidence or not.

I mean, it's like is the data credible? Not, is the evidence credible? I mean, because to say is evidence credible is to question the underlying data. Evidence is only a truth or, let's say, supportive of a hypothesis or a conclusion. In the context of the conclusion of the hypothesis or a question.

So it's an interesting lack of understanding, even on the part of AARO, of what the terminology means. And so I think by doing that, they unfortunately and I'd love for them to be good about it. They just discredit their own scientific underpinnings.

But then at the same time, they will publish a list of God knows how many things that they can't explain. They'll put up pictures of spheres moving around, you know, like the one in Mosul and then openly state that we see many of these things.

This appears to be a confusion between a negative hypothesis: There is zero ETI activity (which is impossible to prove) with a positive hypothesis: There is no credible evidence of ETI activity (AAROs finding from the evidence it has obtained).

Dr Nolan recognises the hard ETI evidence problem, and IMO is very sensitive on the topic. He seems defensive throughout the entire discussion, despite Matt Ford's enthusiastic support.

Without hard evidence, could Dr Nolan gain from any debate? I think he realized the answer very quickly.

48:01 [Nolan] I mean, they said (CBS News): We want to have a debate. And like red flags went up.

And I said: A debate about what?

And she said: About UAP. And I said: Well, what about then?

And she says: Whether they're, you know (real), I said: Well, and with whom?

And she said: Mick West. And I'm like: Are you guys (serious)? Come on! It's, I mean: No, I said right away.

And she said: Oh, he (Mick West) said, you'd say that.

Well, I said: At least he's right about something!

So, you know, look, I appreciate (skeptics), I am a skeptic. I don't need to sit across from a debunker (Mick West) who claims to be a skeptic.

You know, I mean, let's go back a little bit, almost 15 years now. When the Atacama mummy thing came out and people said that I had debunked it as an alien. That actually got me mad.

Because I didn't enter the conversation with Steven Greer to purposefully debunk anything. I entered it to understand it.

And I even remember a couple of times driving around in the car when we, when some of the initial data was coming in, I didn't understand what the genetic sequences meant, thinking, this might be real.

But then, you know, the scientist in the back of my head said: You better go check this out before you say anything. Of course, I sent emails updating Steven as to where my thought process was, you know, so I went and got the necessary experts, which is what you do as a scientist.

We're not, we're not all good at everything. So you bring in additional people who said: Well, no, here's the reason why this (DNA) is unassignable or is novel, you know, cause it's because the data is collected from degraded material, and this can happen. And you need this many overreads to be able to be sure, et cetera, et cetera.

And so, you know, when the paper finally came out and people were calling me saying I was a debunker, it actually angered me because I didn't set out to prove or disprove anything. I would love if somebody were to go back and redo it and say: Hey Gary, you're wrong!

Rather than being proud of following the evidence, Dr Nolan appears to express disappointment and regret in proving the Atacama skeleton as human. This is cognitive dissonance.

IMO, it appears the disclosure movement's dislike of skeptics and debunking is due to the perceived PR damage. I see this as logic like: Please stop debunking! It interferes with our mission to get people to believe!

This explains why an apparent PR success like Age of Disclosure, and the upcoming Spielberg jaunt is seen by some as a victory against skeptics. It also explains why the disclosure movement is a "broad church" that may have no qualms with serial fantasists and even grifters. Anyone who helps in the popularizing of belief may be a means to an end.

Believers: Yippee! There are more people who believe! We can lobby for more funding and access to power brokers! Those pesky skeptics must be furious!

Skeptics: Er what? Belief is a personal thing. We also believe in ETI. We just follow the evidence to explain things, and call out those who engage in deception and fraud, i.e. debunking.

And what can a believer with no evidence do when a skeptic insists on focussing on the evidence? Resort to ad hominem tactics, i.e. attack the messenger rather than the message, and call them names like pseudo-skeptic.

The other tactic is to fake it until you make it. Yet, the anecdotal conspiracy stories to Congress have produced nothing to date.

 

[RTM]

Listening to him and others (especially on r/ufo) I really can't understand they are not doing the basic investigations that critics/skeptics/debunkers do. It should be their starting point to eliminate the mundane, the fact they don't is not an indication they should be taken seriously.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

I really can't understand they are not doing the basic investigations that critics/skeptics/debunkers do.

IMO believers are all about "show me the good stuff" (directed at the shadowy super-secret conspiracy that is naughtily hiding it from them). The only pathway is to get some power brokers to push the doors open for them. To do this, they must recruit them, and to do that, they must play poker with a convincing bluff game (I heard this and saw that, the conspiracy is real!).

Otherwise hope all the noise will convince a "real" insider (if true) with hard evidence to reveal themselves. Please reveal yourselves! You'll be heroes! We'll protect and worship you!

Either way, to put the pressure on, they need to get the public behind the issue, and to do that, they ideally need people to go out on the street and protest en masse. To achieve this, it is key to get the public to "believe" (since there is no hard evidence).

So every debunk is viewed as a setback in this mission. There is zero incentive to produce prosaic explanations for anything. I'm sure many are as frustrated by the fuzzy blobs as we are. Yet believers are incentivized to sell them as hard as possible.

If ever there was a president that could be "sweet talked" by the believers into the disclosure game, it would be Trump. Yet the Trump administration chaos may actually make any such (if real) shadowy super-secret program easier to conceal itself.

To win the game, just like a team of players, some of whom may be scandal ridden, they must play nice, work together, and keep their eyes on the prize, to FINALLY get the good stuff!

This is a self-imposed prison of expectation and belief.

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

04:57 [Ford] And when it comes to the UAP issue as everyone knows this topic has been labeled as fringe.

I hate how they have hijacked UAP.

UAP isn't fringe. Every single person has seen something in the sky they are unable to identify.

That the thing you are unable to identify is extraterrestrial is fringe.

Same that UFOs weren't fringe until it became synonymous with extraterrestrials.

UAP was introduced because that lot poisoned UFOs the same way they are poisoning UAP now. What was the point?

 

[FatPhil]

UAP was introduced because that lot poisoned UFOs the same way they are poisoning UAP now. What was the point?

It is unavoidable as there's feedback - equilibrium is unstable. I think it was Pinker who dubbed these kinds of things a "treadmill", and I think specifically the "euphemism treadmill". Most often seen in uncomfortable, or downright taboo, topics such as racial epithets or references to handicaps (ooops - that's an out of date term, I ought to use what replaced it, or whatever replaced that, unless we've come full circle again, I can't keep up).

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

UAP isn't fringe. Every single person has seen something in the sky they are unable to identify.

When you've got characters like Steven Greer and Chris Bledsoe who claim they can psychically attract ETI, then fringe labels are inevitable to some extent.

 

[Mendel]

Rather than being proud of following the evidence, Dr Nolan appears to express disappointment and regret in proving the Atacama skeleton as human. This is cognitive dissonance.

He doesn't like being called a debunker for following the evidence.
He doesn't see the irony.