American Alchemy with Jesse Michels
American Alchemy with Jesse Michels

Former NSA Director Breaks Silence on UFOs

April 26, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Former NSA Research Director on UFOs: What's Real, What's Possible, and What We Don't Know

Dr. Eric Haseltine, former director of research at the National Security Agency and later CTO of the entire U.S. intelligence community, has spent decades inside the government's most sensitive science programs. He also happens to have co-authored a book about UFOs with his wife, Dr. Chris Gilbert, an MD/PhD physician who has worked with Doctors Without Borders across four continents. When asked whether he ever saw classified UFO evidence during his government service, Haseltine's answer is direct: "I never saw anything like that." But he adds a crucial caveat: "The fact that I didn't know it doesn't mean it wasn't there."

The Intelligence Analyst's Framework

Haseltine approaches UFOs the same way he approached threats during his career: through the method of competing hypotheses. "When we see a phenomena or an event, we say what are all the different hypotheses for what could be driving this? Then we go and we look for evidence that would support or contradict each of those." In their book The New Science of UFOs, he and Gilbert lay out a systematic matrix of possibilities—from optical illusions and atmospheric effects to drones, classified human technology, and genuine non-human intelligence.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 Timestamped Navigation Outline
  • 2 (01:05) **Introduction and Guest Credentials** - Host Jesse Michels introduces Dr. Eric Haseltine (former NSA Director of Research) and Dr. Chris Gilbert (MD/PhD, holistic medicine pioneer)
  • 3 (06:08) **The Competing Hypotheses Framework** - Eric explains the intelligence community's analytic method for evaluating UFO/UAP phenomena
  • 4 (09:09) **The Negative Space Approach** - Eric introduces the intelligence analyst technique of looking where you least expect
  • 5 (17:21) **Noetics and Distributed Consciousness** - Eric introduces the fringe field of noetics and the idea that consciousness is a property of the universe
  • 6 (23:06) **Time as a Dimension and the Silurian Hypothesis** - Eric explores the possibility that UFOs come from Earth's past or future
  • 7 (29:54) **Higher Dimensions and the Limits of Perception** - Eric uses dimensional analogies to explain impossible-seeming phenomena

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Our American Alchemists this week are Dr. Haseltine and Dr. Gilbert.

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Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 03:25 - Interview Begins 04:31 - The New Science of UFOs 09:54 - Exo-Psychology 14:52 - Sponsor (Shopify) 16:20 - Noetics and Consciousness 21:52 - Time Travel and UFOs 32:13 - Sponsor (Factor Meals) 33:49 - The Nimitz and Plasma Spoofing 44:04 - "That's Funny" Moments 47:00 - Reverse Engineering Programs 51:31 - Laser-Propelled Discs 55:06 - Havana Syndrome 1:05:22 - UFOs at Nuclear Sites 1:16:27 - Stargate and Psychic Spying 1:25:36 - Exotic Propulsion 1:36:09 - Warp Drives 1:45:10 - The Shadow of Time 1:56:01 - Fiction Meets Reality 2:13:13 - Breakaway Defense Science 2:21:29 - Mind-Controlled Drones 2:26:05 - Net Assessment on UFOs 2:35:37 - Panspermia 2:42:54 - The Listening Cure 3:00:17 - AA Merch

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