Nuclear physicist John Brandenburg joined George in the first half to discuss Mars anomalies. His theory is that there is ample evidence (in the form of artifacts observed by orbiters and rovers) for an ancient civilization on the red planet, which he believes was wiped out in a nuclear holocaust at some time in the distant past. His quest began with early images from the Viking orbiter, which showed the famous "face" in the Cydonia region. He and fellow scientists examined this and subsequent pictures taken with better resolution and discovered that the formation had "nostrils" where the nose would be. Brandenburg says that Mars "was earthlike in the past."
He described the ancient Martian civilization as primitive, on the level of the Egyptians or the Aztecs, who built their huge monuments out of stone, and that about a quarter to a half-billion years ago (before the age of the dinosaurs on Earth) two massive nuclear explosions destroyed all life on the planet. He has theorized that the attacks came from an extraterrestrial force that dropped bombs from space with an estimated total yield of "a billion megatons." He says that the presence of excessive xenon and krypton gas in the atmosphere of Mars are the fingerprint of this massive tragedy. Brandenburg described the problem of discovery of these issues as a "Darwinian cosmic intelligence test," meaning that the human race must go to Mars and study the reasons for the planet's destruction in order to save our ourselves or to deal with any other intelligences in the universe. View related image: 'Aztec Head' on Mars.
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Author and researcher Jack Brewer checked in for the second half with his contention that UFO study has been compromised by both government disinformation and many Ufologists. Brewer has been a student of alien abduction and the UFO phenomenon for over 20 years. He describes himself as a skeptic in the classical sense of the word, meaning that he takes nothing at face value. By some of their statements, Brewer believes that some government agents are "inserting the intelligence community into the genre" of UFOs and abductions. Some of this may be for gathering intelligence or performing counterintelligence or perhaps, more ominously, as an adjunct to mind control projects. In spite of this, Brewer thinks that only a small percentage of UFO reports may be due to government influence, although the spread of disinformation is more widespread and troubling.
As for the research community, Brewer thinks that much of ufology "seems to be at times a self-perpetuating meme–almost a mythology" and that care must be taken to examine the mystery as a true unknown, rather than one full of assumptions about extraterrestrials and their motivations. He also believes that abductees deserve "proper respect and resources" from trained psychology professionals. In general, he thinks that much of UFO study is currently burdened with the "difference between a fact and a supposition" and it will take many years of patient research, true scientific methods, and suspension of judgment to approach any solution to the enigma.
News segment guests: Catherine Austin Fitts, Steve Kates aka "Dr. Sky"