highest paying job they have ever had and they don't want to give up so their reelection is more important than the actual problem solving annie jacobsen live on "in depth" for the next three hours start now. >> host: annie jacobsen

start with what is area 51? did meg is secret base in nevada were all kinds of mysterious things happen that we can talk about maybe we know what is going on maybe we don't is a big debate i believe it is called area 51 it is the original project from 1951 the information given to meby from sources that i interviewed at length for the book but everything is a puzzle so even that is debated the actual origins from the area of 1951. >> the atomic energy commission was doing a lot of testing out there theynt wanted to do with a working secret and the cia was

coming into existence. ended to merge with the idea if you have a secret base inside a secret place youog could do a secret program.m. >> host: of the military operation necessarily? >> guest: everyy organization you could imagine has been there over the decades military and intelligence atomic energy energy, everybody has their foot in an area 51. >> host: while was the operation? >> the idea is from my prior bucks and went was finishing up "area 51" i've learned quite a bit about the scientist that were stilll working on programs and i found it fascinating.

a very important technicald airforce person when he retired he got the distinguished civilian service award that is incredibly high a award to get from the pentagon looking at his past unrealized he was housed during world war two when awa the most important technical intelligence officers of the left asa and was given the highest award and i thought howdy work for one side than the other? that is why i wrote operation paper clip that was the springboard. >> host: what was operation paper clip? >> after the war we brought as many as 1600 not sea scientist to create our

weapons program this brings up a lot of moral questions i fd what i found most intriguing trying to maintain a neutral position and looking at polls sides of the argument many people thought paper clip was imperative we had to bring them to the united states to be the russians but others will tell you how they possibly brought them here and some of them were in a nutshals. it was extremely complicated and always to sides to the argument.brain," book n book number three pentagons brain, that idea came from

paper clips when my editor the most famous operation paper clip scientists treated our rocket program and is really responsible for apollo. >> host: he was a nazi scientist? >> yes. >> negative editor asked meed when i'm is finishing at what went on in this particular year? i looked into it to find out in 1957 that a new agency was emergency -- emergingled with the advanced research project agency that now we've known that as darpa

who is the best scientists to lead all of the americans of military technology?rowned. he was interviewed for the job with the caveat was i need to bring 12 of myol colleagues from the rocket program. that was the dividing line and they said no so they butsed on him to be darpaa first director. but the way that it came about was realizing the defense department is concerned with who will lead us in technology in the future? >> host: what are some of the things that have come out of darpa? >> you need it. of course, the most famous is the internet. but technology is like gps.

there is no end to what the pentagon produces. even artificial intelligence they say is the darpa project or three the i dachnology so the idea that darpa is the most powerful in productive militarycy science agency is the world in so few people know what about it. that is why i wrote the book initial because how could this agency be so significant to change and shape our world but yet it is public perception. >> host: psychokinesis? >> guest: book number four

that was just published last week the idea and the book is called phenomenon in the government investigations into esp and psychokinesis knowasensory perception getting knowledge of the then through the five senses and psychokinesis the ability to move matter with the mind these are very controversial subjects that many scientists day mattis pseudoscience but had an interest to write about this after reading - - writing the pentagon sprain it was called squishy science but, the intelligence community is interested in both of these projects and so mit's seven taxpayer dollars are funding psychokinesis and

esp? >> yes. this goes back by the way all roads lead back to the nazi especially when i investigating reporting on the defense department weapons program and the intelligence community with a collection program. espn psychokinesis leads back to the nazis as well savvier talking decades of research in this area with two original programs came from the idea that after the war we had the intelligence collection unit when the war was still going on in and recent our finest scientist to capture the nazie technology and we did in this is the link. so one of the documents that

we found was part of the science organization and with is that they were and stigating psychokinesis it when they got these documents was very interesting to lot of individuals in the military intelligence community in particular because of the other half of the documents were the russians so we were worried how the psychic arms race really began in with the hard science department you have the rocket arms race with the captured not seek documents.

>> was your career arc to be a historian greg. >> not at all fate and circumstance intervened that is why it is such an interesting concept for me to write about how circumstance has a role. i wanted to be a novelist and went to boarding schoolewrie at 15 of was going to be the great american novelist in decades past. and one of my mentors saidsa to be stop making things up and pursue the truth. does the truth that matters. he also pointed out have difficulty following directions and if i work with an editor added newspaper or magazine i

could learn how to follow directions and that is exactly what i did. of because if you are willing to take criticism about your work they can help you streamline your ideas and suggest that you interview different people. that is enormously powerful journey with the other great minds are brought into the next and then you wind up where you were headed. >> host: get started on "area 51". >> that was fate and circumstance where law comeses into play was interesting to write the book on an espn psychokinesis a lot of the

scientist who lean toward the supernatural talk about luck and coincidence and they say that these fall into that category. it is very squishy science concept but i like to think about it specifically because of the question how do get a lucky break? it is a fortune favors the prepared mind or fewer reading or writing or thinking then circumstance intervenes but specifically i was at a dinner party for seated next to a gentleman i had known nine years that was always under the impression he was an aircraft designer in working

for lockheed martin in andover to me one day and said boy do i have an interesting story for you at the time my was reporting on terrorism. he said the cia just declassified my life's work i invented stealth technology for guy led the team when eisenhower was president. mattis remarkable before a reporter to get low and behold they had just a classified this aircraft program that to a place that area 51 so i was talking about him about his rolee and

with this incredible aircraft in their learned very quickly there is a back story to the back story and they will all fall in the access of area 51 that is how i got the idea. >> when did the larger public become aware quite. >> that is a great question. it is interesting in termsy of u.s. national security because it fit his of potent site the fact that there remained almost unknown to the general population is astonishing. i make the analogy of the manhattan project even vice president harry truman or congress did not know.

so i think secret keeping is very interesting. but it wasn't until individual that leaked out this bit of news that landed on the edge of conspiracy then area 51 became known and that is the origins of the extern marymount of conspiracy theory that grew out and still exist there are still things going on there now. one interesting engineer was out there at the base according to him he saw things although people will tell you he never worked there. t in is inside the puzzle inside the conundrum but he

stood inside his position that he saw aliens but as i was reporting the story of the of black propaganda and they dress them up to make him look like an alien with the idea of mythology and misinformation is part of parcel to area 51 in thee subjects are conducive to that. >> sea have to sign a note if you are working that area 51 is a call the area 51 by people who work there as well? >> yes and no originally knows interviewing the scientists that work tore their like the pilots they would call it the range for the lake or the code namesit. but of course, what is

fascinating to me the actual word area 51 was classified and i was writing the book it is now been declassified because obama referred to it publicly but when i was eaoking at those documents earlier there would be a small word redacted if you look at it up to the white is says area 51 so out of 7,000 pages of documents that i reviewed by phone to places for somebody forgotbl to blackett out you could see it there and it was the odd moment. >> loss vegas television. what happened? >> robert went on television to make a claim that there

was alien technology there was an alien health care and people have been fascinated with ufos for millennia. the this was like setting off of match in the story built into became afire storm and that has since become a great point of contention in why it is some potential lockdown because people will not move off the idea there are aliens out there. >> what type of cooperation did you get from various government agencies that you worked with? >> everybody is different.ook is -- every book is different but that is the dance with a journalist because just the

basic job is to inform the public but in spirit you shouldn't even though city would think you want to work with those transparenten elements to make things noun but i find in my experience like that puerto rico officeages only want to present a certain message that is the message not a fact so where i do most of my reporting is interviewing scientists that are retired to work on their significant program for the individual agencies. and are acutely aware of what they can speak of them but they cannot because it is still classified kelso right cold war so things that were incredibly interesting so with those

measures decades ago the public has moved on but then tracking down the superman a scientist they are happy to share their stories becausese people have lost interest so it is an idea it is important to know the past to safeguard the future and that is the greatest joy working with the defense scientists to our dedicated to believing what they did but as they get older they're willing to share their failures and of press office and any military or

intelligence office doesn't want to talk about failure only success and there is a danger in that it isn't to ridicule a failure rathert demonstrate that failure is part of success but we must be very careful trying to cover-up failure. >> college of what went on that area 51 is still classified? >> this is the analogy. sometimes it is that i wrote the book on area 51 and but if you imagine an iceberg, a juicy then how much as below the surface i am guessing but if he planted a flag at the top that is probably when i recorded in the 450 page book.

what has gone on or contiguous to golan baubles of mind we could talk aboutab tunnel technology when you think there is total systems things that are going on it is just a great mystery i cannot wait to write areaa 52. 52. >> can you become a freedom of information request expert? >> most definitely. i filed so many request they often come in the mail with the aid by 10 envelope but comes from dod or nsa or cia it is the thin envelope you open up one should've paper that says it is unresponsive every now and then you'll

get a bigger envelope that is a great moment of joy and that is what happened with the phenomenon. i came home and there was a thick manila packet on thency, cia as a request for grantedst there was almost 1,000 pages of documents for of the espum psychokinesis programs the basis of phenomenon that is where i learned how the astronaut had esp test going to the moon these documents are priceless. >> host: so let's go to phenomenon. . . .... ....

image library because so much of darpa has to do with space. it was the l >> it was the longest one of the organization. i found this image and it shows an astronaut standing on the moon, reading a document. i thought, oh, my, god this is an incredible image. you have advanced science. i mean, space travel, and you know, prototechnology. and i have to know what that astronaut was reading on the moon. first, i found out it was edgar mitchell of apollo 14. >> host: sixth man to step on the moon. >> guest: yes, i went to interview him in florida and asked what he was read n oon th moon and he said a map. man on the moon reading a map of

the moon. why was he reading the map? because he was lost. that, to me, is just a brilliant, beautiful. the book is about failure. how do you define failure? you have a program failure but also individual failure and that often leads to people being lost or feeling like they are lost. because i write narrative non fiction and it is character based i care about the people i write about and how it is the metaphor for the big story. when mitchell told me about bogue lost on the moon, and the brief version, i write about it in "phenomena" and keep in mind apollo 14 comes after apollo 13,

the failed moon mission. it was so much pressure on them to perform. the geologist wanted them to go to crane crater and pull out rock samples and believed those samples could provide earth's origins and the moon. you cannot have much more pressure on you. he now, and shepherd, that was their mission. they fly 240,000 miles to get the moon. mitchell was the pilot and lands within 87 feet of the target and then they get lost locally trying to find cone crater. it doesn't get more human. and when they found out they were lost they didn't have any issue of perspective in that airless environment. they became confused and told nasa you can read all these

transcri transcripts. nasa is trying to help them. nasa dave them 30 more minutes and they couldn't find their way to the crater and were told to go home. you know? and so, hearing from mitchell about this disappointment of going all the way there and missing what turned out to be the target by about a 1,000 feet is just amazing. we shared with me how disappointed he felt on the trip home from the moon. but looking out one of the five windows on that spacecraft he had what he said wasane epiphany. he looked out and to him he realized that man was more than he previously thought. he became fascinated in that moment with the idea of consciousness, the idea of what is man capable of and that is why i think my new book, "phenomena," is really about the

reacher of what can be known. mitchell came home, quit nasa, divorced his wife and made new trends and began a trajectory in the world of esp and suffered greatly because of it. >> host: why did he suffer? >> guest: he was ridiculed. you can nut pull up any article on mitchell without a snickering journalist talking about conducting esp experiments on the way to and from the moon. he had a phd from mit and all his friends were scientists. but he had what is called a conversion moment another theme in the book "phenomena."

you have these converging moments when dealing with extra perception and become convinced of the reality of the funphenom and pursue it. because of the scientific skeptic community insists this is pseudoscience because, rightly so, psychokinesis doesn't past the scientific muster and infive steps you must adhere to move from hypothesis to general theory with the most important being it is repeatable. esp experiments are not repeatable. those pro say it is -- but those against it say that is hog wash.

there is a battle against science versus super natural and speaks to what are the far regions of what men can know. >> host: in "phenomena," annie jacobson, you post government documents saying we cannot not prove this is not real. in a sense, there is some doubt there. >> guest: there is doubt, absolutely. there is doubt everywhere. but the cia concluded that the phenomena was real but they good not repeat it. they said it doesn't take away from the fact that these real laboratory experiences happened. now, what i found most interesting in reporting "phenomena," the book, is when i began researching and reporting i was under the impressions they were buttoned up in the mid 1990s and the ground fall of this big defense program. i was astonished to learn they are back today, under the rubric

of advanced cognition. so the defense department is now merging this idea of the biological, the sixth sense, the office of naval research called it the spidy sense. instead of the psychologists of the '70s and '80s now the defense department employed neuro biologists and computer engineers and taking the people who have the spidey sense and looking at their brain and trying to model what is going on in their brin and then of course to accelerate it and ultimately weaponize it because that is the role of the defense department. >> host: because of your research have you had a conversion moment when it comes to those topics? >> guest: no. harvard experimental

psychologist created a system about how how individuals approach this controversial matter. she said on the one side there were goats. goats were the skeptics who said this is non-sense. sheep, on the other hand, were those who were open to the idea of esp, of psychokinesis. and i would say i began as a neutral journalist but looking at many of these experiences, reporting and looking at declassified documents and seeing what the defense department thinks and incthe ci and talking the sans scientists and others i shifted to the sheep.

i happen open to it is unknown. the conclusions are not yet in. i think that is the idea of the far reaches of what can be known. for me it is wiser to lean sheep not throw out the baby with the bath water, if you will. >> host: are there aliens at area 51? let's go to that. gue>> guest: that is what every wants to know. >> host: that is the first question you are always asked? >> guest: about area 51. i interviewed 75 people, all the direct access to the area, all went on record, one remaining anonymous because he gave me what still is, according to him classified information. he was an atomic energy commission scientist and he told me this shocking story in the

end of the "area 51" book. it takes up 12 pages at the end of the book and what garners the most curiosity. what he told he me was that there was a program out there he worked on which was a black propaganda program to create creatures that looked like aliens. it involved human experimentation. he was very parsimonious with the details but very distinct about going on the record about this. i interviewed him for over a hundred hours and stayed in contact with him after the book published and continued to have discussions with him. he sticks by that idea. the read on "area 51" as i tell the story he told it it me is they were not aliens. this doesn't mean there is not

extraordinary material that continues to, you know, swirl around the culdren about why this information is incorrect. but i appreciated his candor with me and i stand by everything he spoke of and i reported in the bock and he stood by it all the way to his death. >> host: and welcome to booktv on c-span2. this is our in depth program. we have one author on to talk about his or her body of work and this one is author annie jacobson. her books, "area 51: an uncensored history of america's top secret military base" came out in 2011. "operation paperclip: the secret intelligence program that brought nazi scientists to america" came out in 2014. "the pentagon's brain: an uncensored history of darpa"

came out in 2015. and her most recent book is "phenomena: the secret history of the u.s. government's investigations into extrasensory perception and psychokinesis" just out this year. she will be our guest for the next two and a half hours. if you have questions or comments you would like to make here is the question i can contact us. dial in on the tell tone. 202-748-8200 forest and central, 748-8201 if you live in the mountain and pacific line. if you want to make a comment and get through on the phone lines try social media. at booktv on twitter and facebook/booktv. you can make a comment there or send an e-mail. we will begin taking your calls in just a few minutes. annie jacobson, are you able to

get any dollar figures on how much is spent at area 51? how much is spent on researching psychoki psychokinesis? and darpa? >> guest: almost all of them are called special access programs. they exist in these very secret classification protocols that are far above normal classified protocols. it is almost impossible to accurately say what the budgets are. one of the budgets i can give you is the darpa budget. darpa spends three billion a year.

an extroidinary amount of money for a 120 program manager. but that is only the public figure. so all of the programs are dealing with black budgets which means the money is unknowable. i believe give you one fascinating detail. in area 51, one of the creators of area 51 if you would was richard bithal, deputy director of the cia. the way in which he became involved in area 51, if you back up a couple years he got a call from allen dausz at the cia and said listen, bithal, bithel sin charge of the marshall plan, the plan to rebuild europe after world war ii. douglas said and i am paraphrasing and nis is the essence, can you skim the money off the marshall fund and give

to us for a secret program. he said are you sure i can do this and he said yes. he did it and years later he found out when made the director of the area 51 project, remember the money you gave us, here is where it went and this is how area 51 was setup. so it is interesting. they find information today from memoirs to places stored and foya requests and interviews. this is the joy of being a journalist. you have many different sources you are pulling from to try and piece together the story for the reader as best as you can. >> somebody who plays apart in several of your books, edward teller. >> guest: almost all of them. i begin the "the pentagon's

brain" with, talk about a colossal failure. this was thermo nuclear weapon. edward teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. the average person thinks nuclear bomb -- perhaps but thermonuclear weapon, one thermo nuclear weapon could take out the eastern sea board. there was one that exploded in in the casa islands. i begin the "the pentagon's brain" with it. from the perspective of witnesses who were there and tell had -- the story. it was supposed to be six and a half mega tons but it went out of control. keller's calculations and all the scientists working with him couldn't predict the future or

their own science experiment and instead it was a runaway thermonuclear bomb. 15 megatons. an astonishing amount of power and energy and apocalyptic by it's very nature. >> host: he shows up in "area 51" and "paperclip" and the whole gamut. >> guest: he is a super interesting character. many would say he has hubris and was trying to outdo his arch rival. other people will say he saved us from soviet because he pushed the development of the thermonuclear bomb which some of his colleagues, by the way, called this the elve thing. these are manhattan project scientists and did want think it

should be developed because it could end the world. he pushed for it and won. >> host: and he was involved with isdi. >> guest: yes, he said pulled in during the reagan administration. i have interviewed people who swear by his beiniferous and when i say that we found out letter the russians were only literally months behind us in the development of their thermonuclear weapon. in this idea of the battle of the superpowers, the u.s. government must stay ahead and it does stay ahead. when i was interviewing darpa scientists, today you have

antonymous weapons, artificial intelligence, biohybrids, human boards. this is all darpa science and the scientists would say to me when i said is this right and they would say what if you were to wake up tomorrow and find out the chinese, russians or a dark horse like saudi arabia presented the world with the first human clone. would americans say my god we have been beaten by an enemy nation? that is why darpa exists, why these weapon programs exist and why area 51 exists and why paperclip exists. we must stay ahead of the world so we are not beaten by te technological surprise. >> host: 28 billion is the development of the nuclear bomb.

200,000 employees kept secret from congress. took more electrical power tha new york. >> guest: i use that as an example when people say you can't believe the government is capable of keeping secrets. of course, the government can and does keep secrets. and then the other side of the argument is it needs to. >> host: somebody lost the history that plays a role in the early development of some of this is van barb bush. who was he? >> guest: he was the scientific director of the manhattan project and sort of going back in time to the years right before america entered world war ii. there was an extroidinary sense of isolatiisolatio

isolation. the president needed to make sure we were keeping up with the science and technological advances that we knew the nazis were making thanks to people like einstein who had already come here, you know? so you have secret science -- that is really where i think secret science began. with vanabar bush and with these pre-war technologies america was hedging her bets rightly so because, you know, you can't start your atomic weapons program when the nazis are working on their triggering system. >> host: annie jacobson is our guest. let's hear from cj in marietta, georgia.

>> caller: actually, i have been talking to a gentlemen that worked for oak ford national laboratory for over 40 years. he contacted me because he knew i worked for one of the largest defense contractors. what is interesting the manhattan project you are speaking in he went on great length about sharing with me, he thought my personality was outgoing enough and wanted to find some of the children or grandchildren, african-american scientists that worked on the manhattan project, and over the course of the christmas holiday for about three weeks i contacted various agencies, p fraternity organizations and was able to five children of some of the individuals who worked on the manhattan project. one of the guys who is a doctor in washington d.c. said his

father kept journals and we are meeting with him in the atlanta area about those various things. but what was very interesting the gentlemen said is his father never talked about his work. you know? he would be gone for months, years at a time, and as you indicated the seckeracy. i never knew about it. it is the secrecy that exists with the area 51 project and national laboratory and others across the united states is so mind-boggling to me. it is, we are here, years later finding out about all these secret projects and things that happened but we will never know

about it unless there are journalists like yourself that bring these things up about what is going on and often times we are not aware why the united states is going into debt because of these projects. >> host: thank you, c.j. any comment? >> guest: you touched upon a very important theme for not only the individuals who work on the programs but their families. it is why i love tracking down and interviewing the children if the parents have passed because you can kind of get a sense of that secrecy. the children knew nothing in many cases and also the wives knew nothing. but a lot of times they have, and will share, you know, father papers that are stored in the attic. and that becomes this idea of legacy and particularly when i worked on "paperclip" and went to germany and interviewed

children of the major nazis who worked hitler and later worked for the department of defense. >> host: what was your reception like in germany? >> guest: it was either black or white. no, i don't want to talk to you, father didn't do anything wrong. nevermind he was a convicted war criminal. i am speaking specifically about a convicted war criminal named auto ambrose who was hitler's chemical weapons developer. he was convicted as i write in "paperclip" mass murder, slavery, genocide and sent to lanzburg prison and then was released by our u.s. high commissioner, don mccoy, and went back into the world and consulted for the atomic energy

commission. he had my father did nothing wrong and he was acquitted. on the other hand, i interviewed other children of major nazis who had a very different take and were thoughtful and remorse full and courageous in sharing with me the profound difficulty of the legacy they must live with. on the one hand, the son cannot be judged by the father. but psychologically it is extraordinary burden to bear. interviewing people who were that forthcoming with me about the complications of that legacy, i feel like that undergirds the book with significance that is deeply

>> guest: they were in every weapons prog emotional. there was a top nazi on everything we were financing. they worked with hitler and sphere and when you think about that they were working for us. i look at 21 but there are 1600 and looking at the big files and mapping out where everyone went. yes, they were in every one of our weapons program. >> yes, i think i read one of those nazi sciences was the first director of the kennedy

space center. >> guest: curt davis. they still give out the curt davis award as the most innovator thinker in this world. i was shocked to find this out because the documents i was able to get from the freedom of information act indu kicatendii bose was a hard car nazi wearing the uniform to work. he turn into colleague for saying mean things about hitler and this guy got picked up by the gestapo and we are giving him an award. i called up the head of the organization that gives that award and he is very defensive and he said he was a great innovator and did all these things for the apollo program and i said what do you say to the person who says to you he was a nazi and his response was very interesting. he had no one has ever asked me

that question before. so, we have journalism to present the facts and let people decide what they think about those facts. >> was it known contemporarily he was a nazi? >> very important question. absolutely not. if you are asked, your answers should be i have been thoroughly investigative by the u.s. military. and he had been thoroughly investigated.

they just didn't reveal what the investigation found. >> host: you were able to make in-roads in germany? have you been to darpa's headquarters? have you set foot in area 51? >> guest: i have not been to darpa's headquarters. they have very secretive and life to present the idea they are a biniferous organization. the results of their work profoundly impacted society and made it easier for people but darpa's job, as indicated in the mandate in 1958, is to create vast weapons systemsf -- systems of the future so darpa is secretive about getting anyone in.

area 51, no journalist has ever been there, including me. i was taken by a group of former manhattan project group scientists when i was still alive to what was the nevada test site which was all the other areas that align with area 51 and they are over the hill. i was in the test site which is where all the bomber craters are and driving through the desert and you see an old save was blown up, like a big giant bank safe. these were parts of the test to see what would survive a small nuclear blast. train tracks, you know, the rubble out there in the desert is remarkable, the area is all consealed so i went there and sawyer 51 five miles away.

>> host: travis is calling in from eureka, california. >> caller: i am interest independent remote viewing. what did you find in your research being in favor of it being a fact? -- in remote viewing. >> guest: remote viewing is another word for extra sensory perception. it was a term created by the cia in the 1970s to destigmatt psychic and esp. it went on for 25 years across the cia, the department of defense, and dia which is the defense intelligence agency. as i write in the book, "phenomena," there are

extraordinary success stories of remote viewing locating hostages, locating downed aircraft. there are also colossal failures. i tell both stories in the book and let you decide. when you look at the facts of what some of these psychics were able to accomplish and see and know the unknowable, with a cia or defense department handler sitting with them inside a shield in a room. there is no way they can be getting information any other way other than this mysterious sixth sense which nobody has been able to explain. i would say the remote viewing success stories exist and i write about them in the book. >> "the pentagon's brain" was a finalist for a pol pulitzer.

this question comes in from chris in texas and here or she asks how does darpa's research make itself from being fully military to something companies can sell at large. >> guest: great question. let's talk about gps. satellite technology finds some origins from area 51. richard bithal, the mayor of area 51 along with dr. bud be lawn were working early satellite technologies as they were running these airplane technology programs and experimenting with satellites. hoped it would work. think about that as a concept in terms of innovation. our whole military runs with the satellite system being at the center. in the '50s and '60s these ideas were just coming online and

there was a mandate at the defense department to create what we know now as gps. it took decades to come to fruition but when darpa made it work it was a military targeting technology. gps you have in your smartphone. it was kept secret. it had an offset by a couple hundred feet. so, if anyone hacked into the our system, they would not be able to target and bombs would be off in essence. it was kept secret through the '90s and during the clinton administration word came down that a european civilian organization was going to develop gps for the consumer and that is why the clinton administration declassified gps

technology because we wanted to be the leader. >> host: al, you are on booktv. >> caller: good afternoon, folks. ms. algebraic, in your book "phenomena" do you mention a person called ingo swan? >> guest: i do. he played a significant role in the early years of the cia program and also in the years of the defense department program. so, there is quite a bit you can read in "phenomena" about swan. he was a very charismatic person and fascinating. >> host: al, why do you ask about him? >> caller: i was in california in '69 when i was an scientologist and my question is

was anyone in that group taken seriously in the "phenomena." and swon said i can do what cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars with my hands tied mind my back. there are two other things i would like to mention that you might be interested in and maybe some other time, not on this program, i could contact you if you are interested but there is a study in the university of virginia done about 30 years ago that scientifically proves things that tie in with what you are doing. it would be an ex tended conversation. i don't know if you want to have it now. >> host: probably we don't have time now, al, but we appreciate you calling in. i think you have a website and we will put that up on the scene if you wish to contact annie

jacobson. >> guest: the scientologist question is interesting. of course had government was absolutely anti-scientologist and i think the biggest memories are a psychoiic working at the same time named pat price who outperformed swan in the psychoing realm, if you will. swan was gifted at describing and using his esp talents, if you, to describe situations narrativety and colorfully. price could pull actual numbers and names and figures off

documents in classified facilities thousands of miles away. he was so good at this that a number of security investigations, high level investigations came down on him because people couldn't fathom how he knew what he did. he died in 1975 under very mysterious circumstances. many conspiracies have risen why he died and one is the science church killed him. >> do scientific skeptics come to our talks? >> guest: yes, i did one with an auditorium filled with 400 people and it is in pasdena near the jet propolusin and half were

big brains from that and the other half of the room were conspiracy theorists. we have this largey raucous debate, not just be asking questions but then they sarted going back and forth and sometimes they were not questions but chuting at one another. i think these are all important readers to have. i find conspiracy theories have roots in truth. i write about this in every book. i am able to unearth these documents, have them declassifi declassified. would any four books exist had it not been for the cold war in russia? >> guest: no, they are all a product of that race.

the arms race between the united states and soviet union and often china comes in. >> host: jornl george e-mail. i believe bob lazar said that element 115 was the power source for the alien technology he was trying to reverse engineer. since then element 115 has been sinathized and apparently not a credible power source. any comments? >> guest: little too inside baseball for me. i interviewed lazer for my book "area 51" but i think the individual is speaking to, these ideas, mysteries, some call conspiracies, these are not going away. people continued to be interested because they feel their questions have not been answered. that, of course, speaks to the idea we have been talking about

transparency, government transparency, what can be known, what should be known. why do we have to wait decades to have documents declassified? >> you write about janet airlines. what is that? >> guest: janet air lines is the private airlines that fly from las vegas to area 51. it has its own conspiracies within conspiracies. i had someone contact be and give me the janet airline schedules. they stopped flying during the day and only fly at night. these mysteries and conspiracies fold within one another and they don't want to end. >> host: why are they called janet airlines? you described the anterior and landing of what it is like. have you been on janet airlines? >> guest: no, i haven't. you have to be invited like many places. certainly area 51 you have to be invited out there.

what is is interesting is in all of my books, interviewing the super man of science, low and behold people say i read your book and tell me the program they were on. dale graph, one of the leading scientists in my new book, "phenomena" was out at area 51. i said that is incredible. tell me what you were doing. i can't tell you. >> host: let's hear from joe in ohio. >> caller: great program. my father was a pilot and didn't talk about it much. he ended up at bell aircraft and there was a program over there. i can remember a picture of him and warner van brawn. eventually he got into the x1

and x2 programs. i never heard much of what happened to brawn after he was at bell. bell was the bell helicopter plant. what can you tell me about him? >> guest: that is a great question. there is another former nazi general and that was walter dorn burger and i write about him in "operation paperclip". he retired and went into private enterprise and was stricken with cancer and died. he comes up in every one of my books. there is a fascinating story where he loops in the book i just written, "phenomena," with

geller, of all people who was a cia asset and had the defense department very concerned with psychokineses. spoon building, which is what g geller, and many say he is a magician. they were concerned what gellar could do is think about the delicate electronic system in an ibm. they were concerned if he could bend the tip of a spoon loosing his mind he could disrupt the electronic system. when he came to the united states he met with warner von brown and there is a paragraph i have of the two of them in "phenomena." but von brown was fascinated with geller. geller got von brown's watch to

stop and geller got one of his old desk calculators to work again by touching it. this mystified von brown and because he was powerful it raised eyebrows. >> host: we had jonathan ronsen a year or two back, the men who stare at goats. does that tie into some of the things you write about in "phenomena"? >> guest: it does. that is the remote viewing program. one of the things i demonstrate over time happened with phenomena program was that the cia was under the impressions this talent, which is still in the hypotheses stage, let's call it enhanced perception.

the cia doctors believed it is biological. it is individualistic. use the mozart analogy. i cannot sing in the shower and you listen to mozart's amazing music and that is different. that is biology. that is the metaphor they used. they believed some people had extraordinary gift the rest of us didn't. the defense department took a different approach. they believed soldiers could be trained to become psychipsychic. the cia advised against this, the defense department pursued it, and it led to a lot of problems within the programs because in many cases you had

soldiers trying to be psychic and having very little success and at the same time you had individual people who were actually psychic, if you will, working on these programs and having success and it created a catch-22. the defense department didn't want to believe people were psychoing because it flew in the face of science. >> host: a lot of corporation said are involved in this book. ratheon corporation and bush was a founder there, i think. a lot of money to be made on these projects? >> guest: defense contracting is a very important subject. it speaks about the military industrial complexnd there warning area i saw was wn i was reporting the "the pentagon's brain" and i learned

that the jason scientists -- if you want to talk conspiracy the jason scientists come up in all the world of conspiracy. >> host: who are the jason's? >> guest: before i interviewed a lot of the jason's one idea is the they are the a illuminati o the defense area. i interviewed the founder of the jason's who worked on many darpa projects for decades. and the jason scientists, what i found to be most interesting, was they were full-time professors at the great universities across america and part-time defense scientists. so they would get together in the summer and solve for darpa whatever cononedrum darpa was

facing. i learned there have been a shift in the defense department, darpa in particular, have moved the jason scientists to the side. they still consult but they are not as important i was told. what is important now in terms of setting policy and making decision about what science projects will be pursued in the future is an organization inside the pentagon called the defense science board. the dsb. as i write very specifically in the pentagon's brain if you look at the individuals on the defense science board they are full-time defense contractors. they are not part-time defense scientists. what you have is what eisenhower warned us against which is the very people who are deciding

which weapon system said, which vast weapon systems of the future the pentagon will pursue, are the same individuals who stand to make extraordinary amount of money on those weapons system. >> host: who runs darpa? >> guest: darpa is director less at the moment. it is really managed by these 120 program managers. as i said earlier, three billion dollars in the hands of 120 program managers. they have extraordinary powers to stop and start programs. they look outside of the military establishment and work with universities and research labs. profoundly innovative. this is the true definition of blue sky research. the question is, you know, do we like where they are leading us and the answer is you don't have a need to know about that because most of the really intense programs that darpa is

working on, artificial intelligence, antonymous weapons, these are classified information. >> host: jake in west hollywood thanks for holding you are on with author annie jacobson. >> caller: you are talking about money now. there is any mechanisms by which the united states gets monies from the companies that use darpa's innovations? because i know if you read the biographery of bill gates or steve jobs they always have a stop at darpa. are we making deals where we get paid for that? >> guest: the way the money flows from darpa is it flows out of darpa in the hands of the

laboratories developing the weapons program. so yes, you know, if apple has a pronl -- prom they want to develop. the investment is in the civilian. if you make a product -- or a better example. for the "the pentagon's brain" i interviewed scientist working on limb regeneration. a salmander loses a tale and it grows back. these scientists think humans will be able to regenerate their own limbs eventually. extraordinary in terms of

wounded warriors. but this kind of research is 20-40 years out. but the sciences at irvine told me is who is going to fund that? no one except for darpa. so darpa is really to invest in very early laboratory research that lead to extraordinary new things. the scientists that i spoke to and write about in the book working on this program were very grateful for this funding because it allows them to continue their research and to seek grants elsewhere. so there is a give and take in this world that has to do with money coming in and new programs going out. >> host: one of the characters in the "the pentagon's brain," michael goldblack. who is he? >> guest: he was the individual who really took biological science to a new level.

back up for a minute. in "the pentagon's brain," i was fascinated by the idea that the hard science of those days, missile technology, weapons, did not involve biological scientists. so that happened ironically when the wall came down and you had soviet biological weapons engineers defecting for the united states and bringing with them the big reveal that the soviets were bricking the the biological weapons treaty and mixing ebola and influenza to create apocalyptic results. when these scientists arrive and began working for darpa, it led to the idea of we need to look inside the body. we need to look at human biology and that is where goldblot enters the scene. at the same time, computers were

now in the '90s. okay the early '90s. computer technology is getting small. we are moving toward nano technology and the defense department now becomes very interested in the idea of human physiology and what individual soldiers are capable of, how you can enhance that and how you can ultimately create a super soldier. you know, gold blot led the way all the way through the late '90s and early 2000s. there was a lot of kickback from the public on this. the idea was ultimately to be able to put computer technology inside human and an early prototype was the rat. they wired up this rat and with a chip in his brain darpa scientists were able to steer the rat through a maze.

well, people cried foul and said this is right at the edge of ethics and you cannot be doing this kind of thing. it is only going to lead in a bad direction so the programs were somewhat curtailed. then 9/11 happened and there was extraordinary amount of funding and now these darpa programs today i write about at length in the "the pentagon's brain" involve pushing the biology of humans in another direction and ultimately merging man and a machinto create what used to be relegated to science fiction. >> host: michael goldblot began his career at mcdonald's. >> guest: he did. and he was recruited by darpa. he developed a system that had a sterilization technology for

mcdonald's on the wake of a bacteria scandal that really put the fastfood restaurants in a lot of trouble. he thought there has to be a military use for this and darpa agreed. >> host: kathleen is calling from los angeles. >> caller: hello, i am have co-chair of the la ions group which is the organization edgar mitchell started to mirror science and spirituality. but i had to comment on growing limb because as an accupunturist have a video of me curing a paralyzed dog with a device.

but i want to talk about speaking about careers and being on the other side of the moon and saying craters have no lava because they went toward our side. i was able to talk to him on the phone and ask him about the evidence armstrong and his colleagues ran into aliens when coming back from the moon and on the moon skwn they reported this on the private line to their doctor. not to the public line. and this is picked up by short wave radio people and they were reporting there people around them. i asked if he had that experience or heard that from armstrong and he declined at the time. i don't know whether he has thinks they didn't want to share. but i just thought that it is such a wonderful organization he started and we would love to

have you come and speak at one of our monthly meetings because right now our main project is fukushima and the extinction level event and why it is being ignored. we have a former nasa scientist who has a remedy for it but it need billions for it. why these things are ignored? >> host: kathleen what is the ion site? >> the institute of onic medicine. it was started after edgar and it is doing science-based research. when i comment, i say the human electromagnetic body.

we have potential in our bodies and this organization is looking into that. .... so, edgar mitchell came back from the moon after the epiphany, quit nasa, divorced with wife and started this organization. it became a front for the cia. and i found that fascinating. he became very involved in all of this, and he is actually the individual who brought geller to the united states and he was the front for the cia in doing that because geller was such a hugely popular figure think needed to mask the idea he was actually being tested by the cia at stanford research institute. >> host: are you familiar with kathleen and her work? >> guest: no. >> host: william in new york. hi, will. >> caller: hello. i had one question.ha a couple of questions.

if she knew anything about the philadelphia experiment and the time travels on montauk, rhode island, and the secret space ships with the nazis and the hitler time bell and the area bases on the far side of the moon and that was it. >> host: thank you, sir.r. any response for him? >> guest: so we talked a lot about conspiracies and how they weave their way through this, because i write about these subjects from a cia or dod fill filter, it's interesting to look at how the organizations deal with these subject matters, and usually it creates a great problem. so because you are -- on the book "knock na" if you're prone to esp and psychokinesis, for a lot of these individuals that

leads to other ideas that are along the lines of what the readers -- the caller was talking about. and as i report in the book it became a real problem at dod because they didn't know how to set ground rules. you can think and talk about aliens but has to occur at home, outside of the military environment. and instead you had a couple of these individuals, these soldiers, who were using government time, government money, to conduct their own t experiments using remote viewing, using esp to try to do all these sort of ideas that the call iris talking about and locate aliens around the world. and the declassified documentsum on this are fascinating. dod did not know how to put a lid on that because they werere concerned -- i don't know itself was upsetting people or -- they

just didn't so it created a colossal problem and kind of led to downfall of the program. >> host: harry, stevensville, montana; are you aware of magicians both retired and working, that actively debutching farrah normal phenomena for the benefit of the public at large? >> guest: yes. write about them in the book. >> in phenomena." >> guest: yes, because it's important to address both sides of the aisle on this issue. there's no doubt that magicians can bend spoons usingexactly predigittation. the question is whether or not geller or someone like him can bend a spoon not using a magic trick, and i write at length about that debate, that battle. that is science versus supernatural the hart. >> host: second question, are

you aware of the james randy educational foundation's offer to pay $1 million for anybody who can exhibit paranormal -- >> guest: i alphas nateed -- because i write about war and weapons i'm fascinated by battles and feuds, both personal, political, global. and randy and eri geller had alr decades long battle over the subject, and they both -- all these decades later they both stand by their ideas. one says this is hogwash, thesa other says this is a biological talent. so the reader might by god see that debate play out as it nose "phenomena" hopefully from a

neutral point of view. showing different declassification documents on the subject.dy and g what the dod thought of geller and randy and they all played role because their feud elevated of this to a public dialogue. so that is interesting also because here they are making this an issue and the defense department and the cia are trying to keep is secret. >> host: bob in kansas. you're on with aney jacob jacobsen on book tv. >> caller: hi, peter, i'm really interested in annie's book. i got up to chapter 11. i'm really interested in a come of threads that you 1/2 there one is your research that was done of psychedelics and the relation to psychic ability. the other thing is the degree to which there was something of an arms race between the russians and the americans in terms of

trying to explore the military about remote viewing. and i use to live in california and met russell targa and was fascinated with his work in remote viewing. did you have an opportunity to interview him for the book.id and i have another thing i will leave you with, since you have done a lot of investigative reporting with darpa, you mentioned edward teller has hid feet in some many strands strand edward teller came up with the concept for geoengineering and mitigate the effects of emp bywg aerosols in the at at at that mr

a. >> guest: your first question speaks to the origins of the psychic program and pulls from the original cache of nazi documents discoveredovered dioperation -- after the war. so one of early ideas that the cia was following with psycho kinesis, with esp, had to dodo with psycho pharmacology, answer a fans ya name for drug. this pulled from an old aztec legend after hallucinogenic mushrooms. the idea that the shamen would take the mushrooms and their powers would be enhance into they'd be able to tell you what was going to happen in the future or tell you who stole you're donkey.te so it happened prophecy and this

got the iaea's -- cia's attention and they -- he was a so, these themes, weave through all of my book with elements of truth, yes there was a program that the cia ran, mk ultra, subproject 58, that sought to per pursue ha ha hallucinogenic mushrooms -- in 1953 they sent to one of the largest mushroom growers in america, made a secret deal with them and shade -- the plan was -- didn't rae veil to the degreer but

we'll find this mushrooms in mexico and then bring them back to the united states and farm them and do all these -- the volume of the experiments thatdo the cia intended seemed pretty significant based on the documents. but of course, the program -- the scientists who led this mission, of all things a banker from jp morgan named watson, and he -- after he came back from mexico with these hallucinogenil mushrooms he wrote a huge magazine article about it in "time magazine" and blew the cover on the program so the mushroom program fill be the wayside. >> host: seems that when you start pulling a thread in one of your stories or in one topic you're researching, all of ayo sudden there's 100 threads you have to pull out sneer -- here. >> guest: you must be careful of the rabbit bowl -- rabbit hole

because you go down tunnels and it's important to realize some of the programs dead end and they do dead end or end. others have different incantations or get rebooted and rebrandded, like the psychic programs of today. >> host: annie jacobsen has foup books, operation pain clear, the secret intelligence program that brought nazi scientists to america. and unchristian sore red history of darpa, came out in 2015. and pomona -- phenomena, her newest. dr. martin jacobson, in the relation to you? e-mail. i

i'm curious about her approachhe to writing. four books in six years is an amazing achievement, given the difficulties she has mentioned with sources how does she schedule her work, what advice she might offer to other writer snooze thank you for the -- writers? >> guest: thanyou for the we. that has to do has to do with early failure, meaning i've been writing for a very long time, since i was 15. when to boarding school with a type writer and no one was really reading what i was writing for decades, and so the fact now i have the great privilege of having people read me inspires me to keep at it, and to keep writing. and i encourage anyone who is writing to continue -- to sort of follow that idea because i think the only failure is quitting.

so if you just keep at it. how do i schedule my writing? i write full-time. and i am always thinking about the -- what i'm writing and why i'm writing it and looking at what is happening the current climate of the world ask tryingg to balance out what are really the concerns we want to be thinking about today, and filtering that back to where it is a lot of these problems come from and where are the solutions. i love the eisenhower idea. in his farewell speech he spoke of the military industrial complex that is so famous, but what ongets left out of that is what he said in the second portland part of the speech where the talk about an alert and knowledgeable citizenry and said that is how you balance security and liberty. what a simple idea.

just being alert and knowledgeable. and that's how i approach all of my books. i try be alert and i read a lot to be knowledgeable and then i get to go out and interview the people who are on the ground, doing the hard work. and tell their stories in my books so that others can read the. >> host: all right, each book it built on the last one. what's the next one? your next topic? >> guest: i always hate to talk about the next topic, but i'mto actually not going to talk about it. >> host: i thought i'd try.. you do have another one built on what you have -- >> guest: absolutely. i mean, i'll hint at it. i'm writing about the cia. and i am -- it's a really interesting news story.ne >> host: do you write at home and do you write offline? is it's computer you use not connected?mp

>> guest: oh, what an interesting -- i most definitely write at home. i have an office. i live in los angeles and i have an office kind of through the garden. take a little garden pathway and that's my office out there, flei standing, and it's small enough not to be distracted. >> host: is it connected to the internet. >> guest: my computer is definitely connected to the internet. >> host: we talked to john gresham before and he writes on an offline compute. >> guest: i'm able to not look the internet but it is a huge resource and i also do a lot of writing long hand. that's how i begin my chapters because i find the brain -- he human brain no matter how much technology we have around, it works at its own speed. at least mine does. so for me the process of writing kind of is like similar to myar thought processes so once i have

information and i know how too begin a chapter, i write it out long hand. this first couple of pages are written that way. >> host: do you still write poetry? >> guest: sometimes. >> host: all your books are dedicated to kevin mom is kevin. >> guest: kevin is my husband.os the new book is dedicated to kevin, jet and finally, my children. the joy of writing is i get to hang out with my family. they're super source of inspiration for me because that has to do with the quality of life. right? so if you enjoy your life, if you love who you're with, then you are inspired, i think, to do interesting some challengingres things. >> host: what kind of work does your husband do. >> guest: he is a commercial actor, has been forever. he is in every commercial youu can imagine.ag >> host: such as? >> guest: you name it. >> host: where would be see him. >> guest: milk, cars, beer ithink we have some b roll of

him in a car commercial here. the first commercial ever shown on c-span, i think, but he is in the nissan path finder commercial. and hes to that full-time. >> guest: yes. yes.st >> host: does he enjoy it. >> guest: he does.ntrepren we're both entrepreneurers and in this world where you're creative and entrepreneurial and thoughtful, he is -- >> host: i don't think we have seen him yet. there he is. driving a bunch of animals around. and that's your husband. >> guest: that's my husband. >> host: how long have you been together.os >> guest: with been marriedd coming up on 21 years. >> host: annie jacobsen is our guest and we'll continue ourur conversation in just a minute after we look at some of the things that have influenced her and some of her favorite writers.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> host: you say that you are reading or have read the lost

city of the monkey god by douglas presson. what is that. >> guest: a good become anan archaeological quest. i love quest story. they're part and parcel to human nation and bring in the idea of success and failure, and then also this idea of who are we and where did we come from? i mean, the more we learn about the past, i think it gives us ideas about the future, about where we're going, which takes me back to "phenomena." the reaches of what can be known. this is the way the world was and then, archaeology revealed actually it was a little different. >> host: you think darpa knew cell phone technology 30 years ago was going to be-0 or 50 years ago, when it was first foundered? >> guest: that's a great question. think maybe goes back to john vaughn neuman, who i write about in the "the pentagon's brain.

i call him the original pentagon's brain and was the inventer of the future computer which contained its own instructions. he was in the basement of the institute for advanced study where einstein was. and van neuman invisited a calculateor. this is an amazing anecdote. he was so smart -- he was a poly math, and he built this computer and originally -- we're like in 1947 now -- he would -- hisou assistants -- he would try to beat the computer at numerical calculation and himself assistants would feed him the calculations and he would compute them in his brain and hi was able to beat the computer

originally. and then one day the late 1940s the computer beat van noyman and it's this profound moment and he said he believed one day computers would be able to think, that idea of sense senscience, and that is looking far off and the smartphone pulls back to the origin story. in smartphone, i-offend's first generation smart phone had more technology that nasa had, more computerthat technology that nasa ahead when it sent ed mitchell to the moon. who is thinking about the future, all of the scientists that darpa prime employ. >> host: licklighter. not names that we know today. >> guest: lick leiter is called the johnny appleseed of the

internet. he did plant the first seeds. he was a darpa scientist called upon to in the jfk era, to do something about what is called b2 in military jingo. command and control. think of technology, talking about the iphone. go back to 1962. jfk, looking at a red phone. the red phone. that's the phone that if you think there's a nuclear strike, you have to call khrushchev, and that tech -- think about the dialing capacity on a rotary phone. and darpa was brought onboard to try to speed that up using computers.ha at the time computers were the size of a room. so lick leiter was brought in to speed up the c2 process and while he was working on the

programs he sent out this famoun memo which was this -- we came up with this idea that one day people would be able to communicate via computers. he was really talking about the internet his n his mind but he called it the intergalactic network and would be a symbiotic relationship between man and machine if the planted the original seeded for the arpa net and he left and others took over and built the internet. then you have this today linking up to the technology in our phone. so what man is capable of thinking about is astonishing, the reaches out what we can know, what will we know list. >> host: you're also reading norst mythology.y. >> guest: my husband is norwegian and my kids are norwegian, and i love the idea of story-telling.

i love archetypes. karl young is in my book for a reason -- karl jung is in my become for a reason. the basic tenets of story telling and how people live their lives and strive, what they strive for. so they want to be the hero. that's an archetype. that's part of mythology. >> host: july 9, 1947, roswell, new mexico. what happened? >> guest: you love -- i'm thinking maybe at home you're

googling these conspiracy theories. >> host: probably a sheep more than a goat. the michigan of roswell is part and par shell to certainly to area 51, certainly to the ideaai that the government keeps secrets, that the military keeps secrets. that is when allegedly a ufo crashed and the military stepped in and took the evidence away. it links up to area 51 because this source of mine told me that he was part of the team that years later received the -- what crashed at roswell at area 51 and this is the origin store of the alien part of area 51. >> host: when you read your accounting of july 9, 1947 in

area 51, it's very believable. >> guest: tell me what you -- everybody has a different interpretation of it. so this is perspective. pov. tell me yours. >> host: you talk about the fact there was a bulletin sent out that the air force sent out a bulletin on put it on the news that this was found and then an hour later came back and had another bulletin and that there were 47 witnesses to this whole thing, 98 witnesses. trucks being loaded. child coffins, et cetera, et cetera. >> guest: these are documented facts, and like the jfk conspiracy, there are numerous, people -- we can't even put a number on it -- that spend so much time going over the precise details. i go over them broadly but youro mentioned the more important ones that -- i think when i say

the most important -- they're actually fact checkable, andal when you have big mysteries and considerable discrepancies within the fact checkable information, i think it's fair to raise questions about what actually went on and why are you covering this up? because there is a coverup ifbe you change your story. >> host: lou in texas, go ahead, lou. >> yes, good afternoon. fascinating. two questions. one, tide you do any reviews of the books, bourne identity series, in your write examination do you think current election of president and all the military in the cabinet and increased defense spending, is that a dark cia project? thank you.u. >> guest: i'm not familiar with any of the caller's books --

>> host: robert ludlum. >> guest: oh. sayre. yes, but i tend to read more nonfiction than fiction. but as for the current administration, i attempt to stay out of politics, and this is why. because i think it's more valuable to maintain neutrality in terms of political systems, agendas, et cetera, because i'm reporting on the intelligence community and the defense department and that doesn't change. i mean, the leader, the commander in chief, changes but maybe of those individuals -- many of those individual are entrenched, and i know and work with many people on both sides of the aisle and i see theirt. point, both sides of the aisle. so i'm more interested in the battle in the individual quest and i'm most interested in the

outcome. >> host: well, given -- let's go to operation paperclip for this in all of your books, you can find this, have they morallyha compromised ourself as a nation at times for goals do -- as you asked do the ends justify the mean. >> guest: that's a perfect segway into the previous question and here's why. when i was working on paperclip, my editor and i would have conversations about making sure that i was showing both sides of the argument. and if there was any book that i was prone to have an opinion about, it was operation paperclip. okay? some i'm not a jewish, built the way, because of my last name people think i'm jewish but what

was interesting to me is that i did try to maintain that neutrality and i think i succeeded and here's why itch tried to show also why there was an argument that it was important to bring the nazi scientist their beat back the russians. so, was it's moral compromise? i'm telling you here on booktv that in my opinion, yes, it felt that way when i was writing it. my job as a journalist was to show both sides. i was on one television program that leans right, let's say, and they said, annie, i'm so glad you wrote this book. you showed part and parcel whoa we had to have this program.. yes, in the nazi were terrible but we have to win the cold war. could be on another show that would lean left and they would

say, annie, thank you for brighting this book. you show that this was morally reprehensible and we never, eve. should have brought these nazis here. no matter what. you show it parse and parcel, thank you. they read the same book. which speaks to my curiosity about perspective, about what -- how people interpret the same fact and that is part of human nature. the ability that we have to see things our way. i think where things get really interesting is when you have someone call it's change of heart, others call it a change of mine. that is what interested me in "phenomena" in particular because almost everyone who works in that world has what is called a conversion moment wher they have a change of heart, where they have a change of mind.th their life changes, and the results are dramatic. >> host: i think i remember

reading in "operation paperclipn pow werner von brown had a cop version but he was born again as a clip sunny didn't interview him and didn't interview his family members and it's hard to really know the reality behind that and i mean the motivation, let's say, because there's no way of knowing if it wasf personally motivate, like from the heart or a motivation from his handlers at nasa who said if you pull some good old'ing religion in i mix here you will be more appealing to the average american than the former nazi scientist with the strong germa accent. >> host: does this tie in at all to the project over in switzerland and france, the big bang -- >> guest: collider. >> host: yes. does it tie into the research

that darpa is doing? >> guest: not that i know of but i wouldn't doubt it. all of science is interconnected in this interesting way. the defense scientist are always looking at what is happening rope -- around the world because we cannot be overtaken by technology. that hemmed -- that is what happened sputnik. they made it into space before we did and that has never happened since so there is good rope -- treason say that darpa is using its job. >> host: e-mail from jim. any knowledge of soldiers being experimented on during the vietnam war era with drugs like lsd and testing them with esp or ufos it's. >> guest: human testing is a

problematic area. in "operation paperclip" i write about the origins of the nuremberg code and then in "area 51" i write about how the nuremberg code wan defied i by conducting experiments relating to radiation, nefarious experiments that were made transparent by the clinton administration. these are worthy documents, very important to look at, abuse it shows -- because it shows you what is possible, right? what is possible flying into the face of something look theth nuremberg code. i'm always on the lookout for that kind of work, for those kind of operations, programs. i did not find any that the reader specifically referring to. >> host: dave, cleveland, ohio,

good afternoon, annie jacobsen is our guest. >> caller: thank you for taking my call and thank you forler: tk booktv. my question is concerning 1957. that was the year of sputnik and also the life article with the multicolor photographs appearing in '57 and in april of '57 they had project 57 that occurred right before the nuclear test series, operation plumb bob and operation 57, blew tonum was scattered across the desert and i i wonder if your research into area 51 if you can give is r details about project 57 thatny might be of interest. >> host: dave, do you have a -- why the interest in these topics? >> caller: well, back in 1989 i was delivering mail and met a man who had been in hiroshima, i u.s. army guy. saw a tv show about cloud samplers and standded getting a lot of newspaper photographs relating to the nuclear test

series and was able to tour the test site in 1995, and i have quite a lot of documents i've got from the government. was at in the reynolds and electrical engineering public reading room in las vegas and i had in my hands uncensored documents. saw the names and the rates of dose that cloud samplers were getting.s that was a thrilling day. i wonder about project 57. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: i wrote about project 57 at length in "area 51" and it was a fascinating test because with did do the plutonium dispersal and i tell it the spiff of the security guard, at map named rich mengas and it's extraordinary what went on, the kind of fast and loosef fast a operations aec was conducting. i also write about cloud

sampling because that is part and parcel to this because many of the test pilots who i interviewed for "area 51 pie including the great herb by stockman, in the first man to fly over the soviet union in a u2, 1956, programming home photographs of 400,000 square feet of the soviet union that had been unseen by the intelligence community before. stockman then went on and was a nuclear test pilot and flew directly through some of those clouds that are being discussed here. so, again, this all kind of loops around together the different threads, coming out in different waygoose the u2 was developed at area 51. >> guest: absolutely.. that was the cia's first spy plane program. called it eyes in the sky. and it was the u2 and then when -- so much of this is about

we do this and then the soviets would beat us or the soviets would beat us back so we builtlt the u2 to fly lie enough that would be out of range of soviet surface to air missiles. then they built up the surface to air missile and then you have the gary powers incident, gets shot down, and soviet unionn started building a new airplane called the ox cart, increatable secret project at 51. the same scientist, edward lovett, worked on the the u2 and then ox cart.. >> host: would is operate you if the president or vice president was not aware of what was going on or the senate? >> guest: i found that out much to my astonishment when if was writing "area 51" and i talk about this incredibly secret program that allegedly involved human experiments out there.

the crossover with the aliens. and i said, how come this was not uncovered during the clinton administration when so much of this that these nefarious human experiments out the test site became public and the source said the president did not have ad in to know. that is an interesting statement. >> host: roy, new castle, indiana, go ahead.se go a >> caller: yes. kudos to c-span and you, peter, and to annie jacobson. i eave a little question here. talked with carol rosen, the right on to von braun in his latter days, and i've communicated with her, with skype, e-mail and talking with her and i wonder if you know anything about her whereabouts and if she is still involved with dr. steven greer and such.

>> guest: i don't. >> host: any of those names rint a bell? >> guest: nope. >> host: where did he end up. >> guest: von brawn. >> host: yes,. >> guest: he worked in thewo defense contracting industry. from my read on documents about him from the government is that after the apollo program ended so abruptly it was extraordinary distressing to him. where do you go from there? it was such a high, the kind of most famous scientist in the country during the apollo ear ya, and era and then people gave up on the program. very difficult time. vietnam war.tn and von braun sort of -- the way i read it, lost his -- he lost his way and became despondent and i write about that in pay

paper clip "and then diagnosis i with cancer and died quickly. >> host: greg, clearwater, florida. >> caller: i have a question about the currentcurr state-of-the-art secret airplane technology in the u.s. because the sr71 and aye-12 were 1950s technology, the stealth fighter was 1970s technology and the b2 bomber is 1980's technology, that's a long time ago. i have you heard about anything about current state-of-the-art exotic aircraft being operated be the u.s. and capables and die know about the air force's x37b space plane, one of which is still in orbit after 600 days in space sunny think you flailed it with that last program. -- you nailed it with the last program. that's one of the post interesting ones and i write

about in "the pentagon's brain." the way i approach that answer is to say if you look back the technology in the 1960s with the a-12 ox cart and you consider going 2,400 miles an hour then. under these secret programs, you can kind of figure our what might be goes on today. based on the information that you talked about, the programs we know about, and then you kind of can speculate on what is unknown, and again, those programs are kept secret because they are part and parcel to national security. the air has always been important space to dominate for the defense department. >> host: from page 364 of "phenomena": the u.n. turned to extra sensory power to help it find saddam hussein's weapon sites. >> guest: this gets into the downfall of the program because

you had some of the soldiers who had been trained to be psychic, retiring from the military and taking it upon themselves to offer their services outside the military, and that is thees situation you're talking about. that led to a grave problem because the protocols involved in remote viewing at that time were so classified, and so by bringing this -- the very subject to the public that was a press release on that because the journalists found thatat interesting, as they should then the kibosh was put on that and took a couple years for the program to be revealed. that was a former soldier going outside of the military, offering private services to the u.n. >> host: since robert lezar in 1989 revealing area 51 to the

general public has there beenn somebody else who has done this? >> guest: that's a good question. not specific live related to area 51. certainly the numbers of people1 interested in that arere phenomenal, but -- and, yes, rev layings all the time, but -- t revelations all the time but i think lazar learned an interesting -- came to an interesting conclusion in my interview with him, about what happens if you reveal something you're not supposed to reveal and the defense departmented learned how to deal with people who say outlineddish things orwh people who say things that they can spin as outlandish, or reflect as outlandish, and also keep in mine when lazar made hie declaration, the world was a totally different place in terms of smartphones.

information is king now, and you can learn so many different things in so many different ways so doesn't have the same power that lazar had going on abc tv. that was a big deal. >> host: when you put in requesd for visit area 51, to whom did you put it in and what was thete answer? >> guest: i requested to go with ed lovett. i present it it as a terrific way to make transparent to the public -- their response is brilliant. always true to form. and they spin around the factsan because they can't actually say -- i refer to it as groom lake, think maybe they would take the bait but they didn't and they just -- it's like your request to go somewhere that we're -- can't even real request

-- really say existed has been denied. >> host: what is area 12? no there are a lot of areas around the nevada test side. and area 25 is where they were building a spaceship that would take to us mars using nuclear weapons technology. you could write a different book about eave one of those areas out there. >> host: if you drive north of vegas on i believe it's state highway 95, you go right past nellis air force base, kind of through it in a sense. is is that where area 51? how far off 59 is area 51. >> guest: it's north in a different direction because it's inside the test site but nellis has always played an interesting role because stories abound

about pilots who -- everybody knows you cannot fly over area 51 and every now and then there's kind of like someone puts their wing into the tip of the box, so to speak and there't a report most of which is redacted, but, yes, they work hand in grandfather and always w have. that -- hand in glove and always have. if you look at a map between china lake in california and area 51 in nevada, the test site, these are huge swaths of land where classified military technology is fully underway. >> host: when you requested to visit the headquarters of darpa, which you describe in your book, "the pentagon's brain" as being in arlington, virginia, suburb here, what was the response. >> same thing. the want to be able to control the message, i think, more than anything, and the idea is, well, if you keep a journalist out you

are definitely controlling the message because they're not in.e so that is an ongoing source of frustration because i do think there's a responsibility by government to try and make the facts nope and to try to make some of these facilities available to people like myself, but what darn -- darpa said, they're not a laboratory.. it's just administration that's going on, are so they say. so they were saying, go, you're going to do better visiting the actual laboratory and so i did. >> host: there's darpa's headquarters on the screen. does nasa have an official position on edgar mitchell and his turn towards esp psychokinesis. >> guest: i don't know of an official position but could i in reading the documents you could get a sense of -- i don't want to say disappointment about

that's the word that comes toor mine.that they like individuals who are part of their big program to stick with the part -- stick with the message, and he had some wild ideas. he became very interested in the idea about aliens, third the end of his life, and he spoke about it at length, and i think a lot of the -- you kind of go where the love is, and he is getting a lot of -- even nastiness from nasa. brought a lawsuit against him at one point over some equipment. so, he's being embraced by individuals who lean towards some -- what i would call conspiratorial ideas about extraterrestrials and it cost

him but it found that interesting. what i always found facinating was mitchell's relationship with geller because i interviewed geller at length in "phenomena" and found him to be extraordinarily interesting and dynamic. i also wound up at prime minister netanyahu net's husbana when i was with eury geller in israel, raising extraordinary questions whether or not he works for massad which is why he left the cia program. when interviewed mitchell he spoke highly of goaler and vice versa.man and and to geller, mitchelld gell represented the great explorer,

their great hero, because he was young when mitchell went to thee map, in this 20s and and told me that ed mitchell, knowing about geller's tell help the experiments and send geller a picture of him on the moon and geller said this made him feel amaze in his moment of doubt but a he was being attacked publicly by scientific skeptics and he said mitchell gave him in the stamina and energy to go forward so they had a fascinate can friendship that is found mysterious. >> host: finish the story about being at prime minister netanyahu's house with uri geller.tn hough did you get there. >> guest: how did we get there? the quest narrative. i was interviewing geller in

israel, and i had specifically wanted to spend a lot of time with him because i wanted to -- i figured that if he was a magician and he was doing this act by predigittation, which randy ands do, magicians can bend spoons by a trick. figured if i spent enough time with geller i would see a crack in the vail -- veil so to speak itch was with him eight to ten hours a day, walking all overr tel aviv, and he is the most famous person in israel and everybody asked him to bend a spoon and he did. so big soup spoons and big kitchen ones in a restaurant. >> host: you saw that happenstat >> guest: i saw it happen and he

doesn't necessarily touch the spoon. i saw him bend a behavior ofair hookah tongs to two and they're crafted to withstandnd extraordinary heed heat. the tongs were like this and he held his finger. was remarkable. one situation i was curious about' wasn't buying this idea that he worked for the massad. he said when he was a little boy that had been his dream so i wondered -- going back to this archetype and this idea of jung and i said this is a childhood fantasy and i said i'm not buying it, what would massad need you for, the spoon bender and he has a very big ego by his open admittans, and he was mad at me and a few hours later we walk up to the residence of the prime minister, and what was

amazing is everybody knew uri geller. the agents, the protective detail, hey, will you bend a spoon for us and he was benning spoons and just had this very surreal quality it to like there is something going on here that is outside the scope of the journalist need to know, and is found it really facinating, and then we were sitting there in the residence and then geller disappeared into the back. and i wondered, is this how the massad works? i don't know. it's a mystery. >> host: so, it makes you more of a sheep than a goat. >> guest: more of a sheep than a goat. that kind of experience, but really, it makes me open to the idea. that's what said in the scale. i'm open to the idea bus i'm open to the idea of -- it's a quest to determine the -- to

think about and what can be known, what is man capable of? and if you think of the world we live in now and this astonishing raid of -- astonishing rate of technology and jung said it when he and wolfgang powelly were discussing esp. a deck long debate and jung said you can only judge what is possible by the criteria of the age, right? so think about what we have been talking about this for hours now.nk where we are now with computer technology. where we are with space travel. this is the -- science fiction decades ago and now it's all possible. so, if you allow yourself to hold that idea and not be so judgmental against these ideas, that, yes, for millenia have

been aligned with the supernatural, aligned withbe magic, but if you can just hold the idea and think about it, i think there is more to be revealed. >> host: don, houston, texas, annie jacobsen is our guest. >> caller: i was in the air force and i was in vandenberg for five years, and some things happen at vandenberg, i worked with nasa and what the 43rd 43rd knights and i met carl sagan, met the colonel that was over project blue book, and there was rumors -- and i saw a number of officers landed on a private aircraft.

we were told they were majestic 12 people, and a few days before this gathering of ps or whatever you want to call them, early afternoon, three ufos passed over our base and all the power went out for about, oh, 15, 20 minutes, and it was -- there was a sac base. we had missile silos but wouldn't a nuclear armed missile base. they test-fired missiles that would be used if we did good to work with russia -- >> host: don, did you actually see the ufos yourself. >> caller: yes, i was at dogsight when they passed of, and my work partner was outside the silo and other people were standing in the area, the air

police were out there when they passed. they didn't pass. the came fast and came to a stop and i looked at the sergeant and he look at me and i said, aim seeing what i'm seeing of what a and he kind of laughed and said, i'm not sure but he said, you know, i don't think we have anything in our industry that can do these kind of things. and i said, well, i think 'er right, and then they -- they angled off right at a high rate of speed and then came backth three or four minutes later and hovered right over the missile silo sites, and then they headed out towards where the nasa launch usually with communication satellites and then sometimes it was top secret operations that they were launching whatever by the military... pened, okay, i walked

the fence. i didn't say yeah, we are alone. i'm an irish catholic and i told a person one day, be ashamed if you know the god that created the univer ..s hear f >> i read about this having another then the flying object there is two sides there are those who say come from another galaxy or they are unidentified flying aircraft meaning it is still a classified project.

one thing i can tell you for certain is ufos were part and parcel to area 51 because the oxcart was often mistaken for a ufo i interviewed the pilot said the scientist in officials from the government who were in charge. sometimes with david sea is the oxcart for a shiny object it was not humanly possible because that was an unknown speed to fly in the early 1960's but the fbi would not get the door literally paying a visit topl the people who reported these to let them know they did nazi anything strange said that created its home because when the fbi showssh up telling is something you did not seize something that

you know, that you saw. for all those individualsbeliev that firmly believe they saw something that cannot be explained there are some different sides to the argument. >> host: all of your books >> g been bestsellers. does that surprise you greg. >> somebody is spent decades trying to get decades that surprises me. >> why did you give up and a great american novel? the mcnulty was buying that it is important to go where the working is and i mean employment. as of reporter the really change things for me because i could accept that so much of the writing is the craft tuesday and keypad and

ultimately will find and and very the story. >> couple of your books are in movie noted? >> yes all of them. there all in television and my new book was just optioned from steven spielberg so you have the old guard like closingg counters and face it steven spielberg built this john wren the modern fictional world then you have others who are not only irresponsible with the paranormal activity but they also make interesting moviese ti and documentaries and those projects are all about what makes you uncomfortable dealing with phenomenon the

idea that the center of the battle between the skeptics and it makes people really uncomfortable because they think one thing but then they talk to the of the side i find that super interesting because ultimately we have to come to terms with their ownse believe system and the amazing thing withso television there is a gentle way into the subjects and they sparking interest in the nonfiction world. >> explain hollywood how can two people option the same? >> 18 up.eam up. and then the content is created moving forward even with operation paper clip that is brad pitt moonves

brad pitt's company and then they teamed up so lot of times and the pentagon brain " you have j.j. a brahms working with warner brothers .area 51, a.m. 51 negative area 51 is from the one that co-wrote fictterminator butut science-fiction is super interesting to lot of people but so much of science fiction wind up becoming the truth and famous scientist tell me their ideas come from reading science fiction as a child.

the idea of what the future may be like is very interesting to me and alike cautionary tales because you can see what you want or hope to avoid. this idea is spooky and particularly important because the last chapters of the pentagon sprain i wrote about to create synthetic in my visit out there to meet those scientist will artificial intelligence need us to the place that george orwell wrote about? or will it liberated us? and how that livee side-by-side in how the intelligence is such a major

player everywhere with a quest for it whether or not we will achieve with what was predicted by yet we have to know but certainly moving in the direction to marry a autonomous weapons of drones . i see danger in that. >> we're never threatenedev because of your research? had you ever been under surveillance? >> the capabilities of the government are extensive and they're right about that in all of my books i really try to keep my nose clean that i am just after the facts and i talked to scientist who

worked on very secret in very classified military programs and they are aware of what they can and cannot say in that is rare the risksk is. i am very grateful the scientists even talk to meen because it would be easier to say i can because they have to tow the line to say i cannot talk about that program because you cannot disclose classified information period and that is the risk that is far greater than a reporter to write a narrative nonfiction >>ould you confirm the rumor that special forces in

delta get a chip embedded for identification purposes like after the failed iranian hostage attempt. they got the remains back so they would put a chip into the so maybe identify the remains? >> the chipping technologygy is very controversial. yes there is.fi civilians do that as well but there's also the chip in t the brain program that iou write about that i think is of far more concern that i write about in the pentagon brain but it is under the idea that brain and wounded soldiers could have a chip b in their brain to bring back

cognition. and those advised of pentagon that it could lead to high quality bring control. when you have a warning and the pentagon chooses to ignore that to think that it is a good idea what the chinese are working on this.

>> that is always the argument. and es darpa is on the cutting edge of of of technologies but so do the chinese. >> host: we have about 15 minutes with annie jacobsen. >> caller: thanks for putting me on. i have a number of questions but what coincidenceut their recommended of the aircraft.discus so would you like to discuss that?

and item number two the roswell incident involved the removal of debris to was special hangar at the airforce base.and and unfortunately i did not have the opportunity slashes the third area of a bite to discuss is back in the '90s a colonel published daybook in which he theorized based on his experience and propose the fact that alien craft and reverse engineering was largely

responsible for the explosion of the technological breakthroughs that took place in the '50s and many of those were done by darpa and disseminated through the private sector. >> host: we will leave it at those three questions but very quickly do you believe that? >> caller: it's hard to disprove because if you look at the development of human civilization there are time, lines when nature discoveries are made like a archimedes nor aristotle the pythagorean theorem or isaac newton but there are huge concentrations within three decades period of explosive

discoveries simply is statistically is out of the norm of human evolution because we looking at bioengineering in computing and the discovery of the transistor in a proliferation of use of silicone and the additional electronic discoveries the aerodynamics that the merger of the skunk works and subsequently better so radically different from the previous history of aerodynamics with the sharp edges.

>> host: thank you for that.. i apologize. i think we understand civic many of the subjects are covered in area 51 like waukegan and all the people these are all ideas if youat talk about what is possible in any age but the idea of strange things in the sky has been issued people have thought about and contemplated creating art going back from priest civilization of was looking at the earliest examples of what people thought were ufos i looked at ridings from the library the oldest in the nation nabal say whoho will win the award plaques

but to feel what it was like to work with a prophecy man's civilization was in is possible even par imposter p parcel with all the subjects that i investigate a love the fact there are ideas that exist like those journalists to look at the documentation in present that story as best as i can based on eyewitnesses' based on documentation and the work of other journalists before me so the story is always evolving and changing the ultimately going in that direction what do we know about the past and have to use that moving forward? where technology is advancing at an astonishing rate and the brains are

still relatively the same. his >> host: no all of a sudden we have these great the ' technology is beginning in the '50s. >> it is cropping up in different parts of the world at the same time. one part that is new to my work speaks to the reader's question so where does inspiration come from?hat the great charlestown told me in the interview he won the nobel prize for the laser. arguably one of the most important technologicalno

inventions of the of modernin era of with military operations surgery five bring this up because scientist always go crazy on this idea so this puts into perspective. i had him confirm with me a story that was up near that the idea of a laser came to am while sitting on a park bench and he said yes. that was his eureka moment but later we learned one is a man of faith so to e.m. in his view of the world and perspective something in that came to them from the supernatural.and th and i think this speaks to

the caller's questions where ane these ideas coming from? and some will tell you that great moments are not limited that i can up with this idea myself but there are three nobel laureates who will talk about thesehese er your rica moments andha believed they come from the whole narrative of aliens or higher intelligence touches upon that theory there is a greater intelligence out there i think it is unwise for me to dismiss and take that position and ridicule soy think the ada to be opento s is far more interesting and courageous. >> caller: fate give veryo

much for the last two hours this has been captivating. i have a question but you just sold for books because i will buy them tomorrow. made that quotation twice with the balance between security and liberty. l with the informed public please don't consider this to be a mean question idol mean for it to be but just how much should we know

about what is going on? >> host: tell us a little bit about yourself. >> i tried to be a writer but not very good at it and not very wise my knowledge is very shallow. uneven know of that is the proper word. >> host: would type of work did you do? are you retired? >> i have done a lot of other things but this is spend the most enjoyable show i wish you would write a novel ms. jacobsen. >> host: how much should we know quite. >> another theme i am always writing about because when

you see some of the program sea classified then you realize what was the stake. there is a very good reason in many instances to keep those programs classified so the other side is not awarear of that and that remains a true defensive measure. with there is the conundrum of the military-industrial complex so the question is brilliant because the military industrial complexity. exists for national security but if their goal is the revelation then you have what one official described as a self licking ice-creamm cone if you could have a great weapon system that stayed classified and they knew about it but cannot

defend against it the coolest to keep them in check then essentially you have an effective weapon system but the minute itst becomes known than that becomes obsolete and creates an entire new vacuum or business to create a new weapon. is a brilliant question and but e is no easy answer but the investigator in me is interested in pursuing thatgh caught -- thought. >> host: here is an e-mail . which one or two programs would you like to see released to the program what would wake you up unequaled sweat greg. >> ed is a great question.

i don't know because really and truly those unknowns programs run the most interesting in never ceases to amaze me when you learn about program that no one knew about then you know, the government is reallygo doing its job to keep secrets but looking back i think the weapons test in space is extremely interesting i know lot of those are still classified because i have reported on those and that speaks the volumes there is talks right now to reroute the spacesp race negative that is extraordinarily dangerousa numbr for a number of reasons because they also talk about perhaps a return to nuclear testing in bat is frightening if you look atou the weapons test done in

space you get paid sense of how dangerous all this could be. >> ohio go ahead with your question. >> caller: i am 93 years old.as leif i am a jacobson i know of any relatives but anyway the question wanted to ask is does the government still have all that material from the city of roswell?

>> host: they give for watching. >> you have the inventors spirit in your blood. >> were there remains quite. >> it depends whom you ask pyrite about that in area 51os that could be a question to year earlier caller if it could be declassified if roswell was. >> host: annie jacobsen is the author of four books with the uncensored history of the top military base operation paper clip in 2014 the secret intelligence program that brought synopses scientist to america and then in 2015 and the most recent book

phenomenon the secret history of the u.s. government investigation into esp and psychokinesis telling us the next book has to do something with the cia. that is broad. >> i'll love to get out ofof the road to talk to people. reminds me of the image of edgar mitchell the man on the moon. if you think of the idea of knowledge and often sat have the best job of the world to listen to a reader's think about in but the experience is and how bad influences them with their lives and thinking is they becomeal knowledgeable partner of the citizenry.

>> caller: speaking about near-death experience andnce esp i had a near-death experience i think the brain is more powerful than any computer have you heard of dark social? it is supposed to be on the internet that people can read what you write on facebook then they take that and claim it as their own then when you go to verify your own riding your told your plagiarizing yourself quite. >> before you go you talk about near-death experiences . what was yours? >> fl on concrete slipped and hit the back of my head

wed i had nothing to prevent my whole weight of the back of my head i know how long i was out but in the ambulancet i saw like it jets rocket ship in front of my eye is going left to right like a slot machine. >> host: i apologize here almost out of time. >> i write about them in the book because that is the

conversion iv lot of people where they have a near-death experience then they come back with that with extreme conviction about now with they will pursue and often hasted do with consciousness. what is the brain capable ofwh if you go somewhere else and come back you have a different perspective and i find that different -- very interesting spinet human physiology that is where weth are today with the esp program. listed of parapsychology is to have microbiologist her narrow physiologist inside the brain working to map the human brain is a remarkable concept particularly with the military in the mix

because it is working to enhance human functioning and cognition and ultimately to ebonized the systems for otr is to e for the systems. >> for last three years -- hours annie jacobsen has been our guest.

. >> when you arrive in washington d.c. to have those surroundings you don't want to give up those comforts and to spend more money and to not solve problems or create problems for the they are efficient or effective to take credit. many members of congress to have a highest paying job they have ever had in one day don't want to give up so the election is more important than the problem solving.

>> host: let's begin reidd begin in the book what the heck is wrong with the state of florida? >> we do have occasion for stupid weird people but it is not our fault