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Leslie Kean has done more than almost anyone else to advance the contemporary UFO conversation. Her 2017 New York Times article changed the landscape overnight by introducing the world to the Navy UFO videos, Lue Elizondo, and AATIP. In 2019, she reported on pilot sightings by Ryan Graves and others in another widely read Times article. In 2023, she broke the story of David Grusch's whistleblower report in a famous piece for The Debrief.
Leslie wrote her first UFO story in 2000 for the Boston Globe, and in 2011, she published her book "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record," which remains one of the clearest and most useful works ever written on this challenging topic.
She also produces the series "UFOs: Investigating the Unknown," which offers an excellent, serious introduction to the subject. Both seasons are available now here: https://www.hulu.com/series/4c1070e7-5b4d-46e1-a5ee-b9eb0c7db18c
Finally, Leslie has explored other mysterious phenomena in her book "Surviving Death: A Journalist Explores the Evidence for an Afterlife," which was adapted by Netflix for a series of the same name: https://www.netflix.com/title/80998853
We're extremely grateful to Leslie for her sharp, clear, insightful and courageous work, and we're honored that she shared her time and wisdom with us for this conversation.
Show note—we discuss the Wilson-Davis memo briefly, but only to establish its provenance. The TLDR on this document is that it contains the notes from an alleged conversation between physicist Eric Davis and Admiral Thomas R. Wilson. According to these notes, Wilson told Davis that in his role as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he uncovered a secret UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering program while conducting an audit of Defense expenditures, and the program heads refused to give him direct access, despite his high rank. The Admiral has called this memo fiction, but as we discuss in this episode, he may have been legally required to do so if the program was or is real. You can read the memo in full here, or access the Congressional record version below: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20074164-wilson-davis-document/ ~ Show Links ~ Music by John Hubbell: https://mathoftrees.bandcamp.com/album/math-of-trees Spacefare Shop: https://spacefare.etsy.com Support the Show: patreon.com/WTUFO Leslie's Site: https://www.lesliekean.com/ Leslie's UFO Show: https://www.hulu.com/series/4c1070e7-5b4d-46e1-a5ee-b9eb0c7db18c Leslie's UFO Book: https://www.amazon.com/UFOs-Generals-Pilots-Government-Officials/dp/0307717089/ Leslie's Afterlife Book: https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Death-Journalist-Investigates-Afterlife/dp/0451497147/ 2020 Globe Article: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-leslie-kean-boston-ufo/148614188/ 2017 Times Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html 2019 Times Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/us/politics/ufo-sightings-navy-pilots.html 2023 Debrief Article: https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/ Wilson-Davis Memo (Congressional Record Version): https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20074164-wilson-davis-document/
