Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen's new book is Nuclear War: A Scenario. In it, she discusses the fact that there is only one scenario – other than an asteroid strike – that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States. She joined George in the first half to paint a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardrails failed. She told George that experts predict 5 billion people, more than half of Earth’s population, could perish in the aftermath. Not just from the blast and the fallout, but from the resulting famine and loss of electrical infrastructure. “It’s terrifying, and it’s actually not my estimate. I’m the reporter conveying the data from the world experts on nuclear winter,” she remarked.
George noted that when Albert Einstein was asked what WWIII might look like, he responded that he didn’t know, but that WWIV would be “fought with sticks and stones.” Jacobsen said the spirit of that quote was a major theme in her book, “because I want readers to be able to consider this idea that man is so capable when you think of the technology that the great minds of modern civilization have brought forth. Never mind modern civilization. You can go all the way back to our early writing system, all this technology over 10,000 years or more, to be gone – annihilated – in a nuclear exchange.” She said she hoped the book terrifies people, not just for the sake of terror, but “so that people get reminded again that these kinds of issues are in all of our hands.” She also discussed the difference between the capabilities of nuclear-armed nations and so-called “dirty bombs” that terrorists might employee, which while deadly don’t have nearly the same impact as ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). She recalled the efforts in the 1980s to engage in nuclear de-escalation, worries that North Korea or Russia might make use of their nuclear stockpiles, and the analog safeguards that are in place to prevent artificial intelligence or computer hackers from initiating conflict.
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In the second half, ancient mystery researcher Jason Martell discussed ancient astronaut theories, including the idea that we either originated elsewhere, on a water planet, or that at some point in the past, humans left Earth for Mars (or originally came from Mars) before returning. He said there is evidence in several ancient texts of interaction with beings from another world – from the Bible to Chinese texts and other traditional stories. Often, he said, these beings were said to either originate from a “water planet” or a place whose root word is associated with water in some way. He also noted the phonetic similarity between words like Dogon and dragon – with the African Dogon people claiming descent from a star-faring people and their knowledge of the star system Sirius, which is unobservable with the naked eye, seemingly confirming some part of their story. “All of these are referencing some type of a water god, some god that either shows up in the water, or is comfortable in the water, or has a sign… that is a symbol of bringing the water bearer.” It only makes sense that people with a need for and connection to water would be drawn to Earth, which is 2/3 water, he observed.
He discussed the possibility that NASA has evidence of human life on Mars, but they aren’t revealing it. Martell also detailed his use of artificial intelligence in his UFO research and how it can be a valuable research tool if employed properly. “(The NASA/Mars connection) is an ongoing topic, and is one of those areas where the AI helps,” he stated. AI, he explained, can analyze images from the Mars missions much more quickly than humans. “Now, instead of manually looking at images, we use AI. Before I would have to maybe spend the day looking at a hundred images, 200 images, and now I can take AI and have it look at 250,000 images in one day. Until we get to Mars, and someone uncovers a human skull in the dust, he said, this is the best way of looking for evidence of human or other intelligent life having once occupied the Red Planet. He introduced his AI tool, Joshua, to George and gave a brief demonstration of how it could answer questions related to the field.
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News segment guests: Howard Bloom / Mish Shedlock