IRH 162: Creatures, Congress, and Consciousness: The UAP Disclosure Accelerates - 2/10/26

0:01 January 20th, 2026 The National Press Club in Washington, DC. Investigative filmmaker James Fox is standing in front of a room full of journalists and cameras. And sitting next to him are people who, if you believe the official story, shouldn't even be there. Brazilian witnesses from a small town called Virgina. American insiders claiming they've worked on crash retrieval programs. Medical professionals with evidence of something they can't explain. And here's the thing. This isn't some UFO conference. This isn't Reddit. This is the National Press Club, the same place where presidents give speeches.

0:45 The witnesses are describing creatures with red eyes, oily brown skin, military convoys showing up in the middle of the night to a tiny dairy town, cover ups, intimidation, 30 years of silence. Some of these people have never told their story publicly. Others have been trying to get someone, anyone to listen since 1996. Now you can believe them or not, that's up to you. But something's changed. UAP disclosure isn't some fringe topic anymore. It's happening in official venues with credible people on the record, and we need to talk about it. Welcome back to Infinite Rabbit Hole. Welcome back to Infinite Rabbit Hole. I'm Jeremy Socia and today I'm

2:17 joined by my Co host Jacob Owens. And if you're new here, welcome. And if you're a long time listener, you're about to get a very different kind of podcast than what you may be used to from us here at The Infinite Rabbit Hole. Here's what we're doing differently. Every week you're going to get two things from us. A news briefing covering the most credible, verified current event stories from the fringes. UFOs, cryptids, consciousness research, the stuff mainstream media either ignores or gets wrong. And then we go deep on one topic. Real investigation, multiple sources. We present the evidence, we ask the hard questions and we let you decide what you think. No sensationalism, no click bait. Just the facts and the mystery.

3:06 Today's briefing is pretty UAPUFO heavy and covers 4 stories, news New congressional mandates forcing the Pentagon to disclose UAP intercepts going back to twenty O 4. A Vermont State legislator proposing an official UFO task force after recent sightings. MIT researchers publishing a breakthrough tool for studying human consciousness in a very strange Cryptid investigation in Washington state involving a cat with, get this, a primate face and a World War 2 nuclear facility. Then we're deep diving into the press conference I mentioned in the opening statement, James Fox, the Virginia incident, and what it means that this conversation is now happening at the National Press Club instead of late night AM radio. And we start today's episode with your briefing on what is currently going on in the world of the unexplained. The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act just passed at the end of 2025, and buried in it are three new mandates specifically about UA PS.

4:17 This is the annual defense spending bill, $900 billion, and Congress put UAP transparency requirements directly into the law. Here's the background. The Pentagon created the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, also known as Arrow, back in 2022. It was supposed to be the official government body investigating UA PS, But lawmakers have been frustrated with how little information Arrow has actually provided. The reports have been sparse, the briefings limited, and there's been a growing sense that they're not being transparent about what they actually know. So Congress decided to force the issue.

4:59 The first mandate requires Arrow to brief Congress on every single UAP intercept conducted by US Northern Command and NORAD since 2004, Not just the famous cases. Everything. And they want specifics, the number of intercepts, where they happened, and the nature of what was encountered. That 2004 day is significant, though. That's the year of the Nimitz encounter. Off the coast of San Diego, Commander David Fraver and his squadron encountered the Tic Tac object that accelerated in ways that defy physics. That incident became public years later. We actually covered that here on the Infinite Rabbit Hole.

5:41 But now Congress wants to know what else happened that year. What happened in 2005? How about 2010 or 2015? How many of these encounters have there been? The second requirement gets into the details. Arrow has to disclose the actual procedures and protocols military personnel followed during UAP encounters. What do pilots do when they see something unexplained? What's the chain of command? Who gets notified? And, critically, what data gets collected during these events and what happens to it? This is important because for decades, pilots have reported being told not to file reports or being discouraged from talking about what they saw.

6:28 This mandate is designed to pull back the curtain on how the military actually handles these situations. The third part deals with classification. Arrow has to provide a consolidated classification guide, basically a master list of what UAP information is classified and why. This is Congress saying we need to know what you're keeping secret and what justification you're using to keep it secret. And here's the thing. This isn't a suggestion. This passed the House 312 to 112. Then the Senate passed it. The White House supports it. This is federal law now. The implications are huge. For the first time, there's a legal mechanism forcing the Pentagon to account for over 2 decades of UAP encounters. They can no longer just say we're looking into it now. They have to provide actual data, actual numbers, actual procedures.

7:23 Now, will they comply fully? That's the question, right? Probably not. There will likely be pushed back about national security, classified sources and methods, all of that, all the stuff we're used to. But the fact that this is even in the NDAA shows how far the conversation has shifted. Five years ago, this would have been laughed out of the committee. Today, it's law. The UAP topic has moved from fringe conspiracy to official Government Accountability. And 2026 is shaping up to be the year we might actually get so many answers. Probably not. Jake, what's your thoughts, man? We're not going to get any answers. It's going to be the same mumbo jumbo as always. I'd love to come to bat and and argue with you on this, but I think you're right.

8:12 Yeah, unfortunately, yeah. I think I I like what what he's doing here, right or what they're doing. It's, it's good that we're trying to hold Arrow accountable. I mean, honestly, everything that we've gotten from Arrow has been BS, right? It's, it's, it's garbage data. Really. It is this is this. Honestly, Arrow, if I had to compare it to anything, it reminds me most of Project Grudge. With all of the disclosure topics being talked about right now, I'm surprised that Arrow's getting away with it. I really, damn, there's just a lot of stuff being talked about right now.

8:57 And as we'll talk, we'll break it down more in our our deep dive segment tonight, the UAP topics not going away. And I don't know how Arrow's going to be able to survive that. Well, screw them. Right on. So back in the day, we, you and I, we met in the Navy in a aviation squadron in Norfolk, VA. It wasn't that long ago. And we, we went from the pilots not being able to report that kind of stuff. There were no, there were no protocols and, and how to report that for the pilots. Like when we went to maintenance meetings, when we did debriefings on flights and everything, there was no way to talk about that. If anything did happen, could you? Could you imagine that being discussed 10 years ago, back when we were in HSC 22?

9:54 No, but I mean, I, I don't know in what circumstance where we would get told that sort of stuff because that would be something that would be debriefed in OPS, not necessarily in maintenance because seeing a UFO doesn't have anything to do with turning a wrench or changing at an APU. But even still, I mean, we would see it's got to be wild if this thing like completely like the leg gets blown off of it. I can recall watching flare videos of missions prior to like safety stand downs and stuff like that. Everyone's kind of filling in at the auditorium and they got flare footage going on of like different OPS, different things that they did that, you know, they can show everybody, hey, this is what your accomplishments allowed to happen essentially, right? This is what you guys worked for. Could you imagine that in the next several years, if it becomes so commonplace, the flare footage is going to be like, here's us blowing up a convoy and here's a Tic Tac, here's us chasing it.

11:03 You know, here's a here's a shooting a Hellfire at it and it bouncing off. Like it's just going to be like like that just commonplace that everyone's going to be like, oh man, saw another one Hustler. Like yeah, saw another one, you know? Man, I've heard some wild theories about these things too. We'll have to get into it one day. Not tonight. But I've really, I don't know. I there's this new theory. I wouldn't even say it's a new theory because it's actually was originally proposed by by John Keel. But you have a lot of people talking about it now because I think it just makes too many, too much sense. Anyways, you got anything else for this topic for the night bud? No all. Right. You ready to move on?

11:44 Yep, all right, nice and quick. This is the new infinite rabbit hole. Yeah, Jake will not talk. Now on to story #2. On January 13th, 2026, State Representative Troy Hedrick introduced a bill to create the Vermont Airspace Safety and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon Task Force. This would be a 10 member panel dedicated to investigating UFO sightings across the state of Vermont. Now you might be thinking Vermont, why? But there is a reason this is happening. In late 2024, residents across Vermont started reporting unexplained lights in the night sky. East Montpelier, Burlington and a plethora of other towns across the state.

12:34 People were calling the police, posting videos online, trying to figure out what they were seeing. The reports were consistent enough that it caught the attention of lawmakers. Here's what the proposed task force would do. It would review any reports of unknown objects in Vermont airspace or waterways. It would investigate sightings that exhibit, quote UN quote, performance characteristics not consistent with currently understood technologies. And there's the key part. It would be authorized to make recommendations about managing risks to public safety and Vermont airspace. The bill specifically calls out certain behaviors. Instantaneous acceleration, hypersonic speeds without visible propulsion, trans medium travel between air and water.

13:19 These are the same characteristics that military pilots have been reporting for years. Also the same ones that we talked about when we covered Lou Elizondo's book Imminent. We talked about this a couple Times Now. Vermont isn't doing this in a vacuum. This mirrors what's happening at the federal level. The Pentagon has the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or ARROW. As we mentioned in the previous segment, Congress passed the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon Disclosure Act in 2023 to standardize how federal agencies handle UAP reports. Vermont is essentially saying cool, now we need to do the same at the state level. 2 And they're not alone.

13:59 This is part of a broader trend of states taking UAP sightings seriously instead of dismissing them. When you have multiple credible witnesses, when you have consistent reports, when people are generally concerned about airspace safety, you can't just ignore it. The bill's Co sponsor, Representative Ryan Byron, put it pretty clearly. He said there have been lots of new stories about the objects that aren't necessarily extraterrestrial but are still unknown. And that's the point. You don't have to believe in aliens to recognize the unidentified objects in your airspace are a legitimate concern.

14:39 If this passes, Vermont would join a small but growing number of states with official mechanisms for investigating, UAP reports. It's grass roots legitimization. It's local government saying this is happening in our communities and we need to take it seriously. It's the same thing we've been documenting with Elmwood, WI for years. Small communities with ongoing sightings finally getting some official recognition that what they're experiencing is real, even if we don't know what it is. Just think but. You know, I actually, I, I do feel that this is necessary because I agree, just because you can, you can say that there's Uaps without believing that they're aliens or extraterrestrial or whatever it is.

15:25 I was just as concerned, maybe not as nearly concerned because it wasn't really happening here. But the the drone thing that was going on in Jersey, you know, last year, that was a big problem because no one knew what the heck it was or what was going on, or at least no one was willing to say anything. And one thing we we see pretty regularly when it comes to conflicts around the world is drones being utilized to drop grenades on people, to drop explosive devices on people to fly into buildings and detonate like all kinds of stuff. Like as far as anyone knew after was it been like 3 years, four years now of watching Russia and Ukraine go at it is that there's videos everywhere of you know, like people POV on the drone dropping a grenade into someone who's sleeping in a foxhole and as far. As their body getting flown halfway. Oh my gosh.

16:25 And as far as anyone knew, they're all lining up for one massive strike where they're going to just start detonating or they're going to start dropping ordinance on people and stuff like that because it's a massive terrorist attack. And no one had any answers. It was just constant drone sightings, right? So I'm actually fairly interested in this because, yeah, I mean, I'm the furthest person or I'm the furthest away from saying, Oh my gosh, it's the aliens. But at the same time, it is important to know what is flying around in our airspace and for what purpose. Because as we know, even with like the the balloon or whatever that flew across the entire United States, we have very interesting things scattered across the United States. You know, silo sites, you know, nuclear testing sites, all kinds of places deep in the heart of the United States, not on the coastlines where they could be attacked by, by sea. But it's important to know what's flying around over them. Because I think, I think I've read a book one time. One time I read a book and it was on, it's basically a doomsday type thing.

17:34 And it was statistically thrown out there that if an EMP attack happened across the United States, right, just knocked out power, like 80% of the country would be dead in a matter of months because there's no survival skills. There's no prepping for like there's certain states where you got to prep for like hurricanes and stuff or power to get knocked out for a couple weeks to a month, right? And that's pretty commonplace. But for a lot of the US, that isn't a thing that ever happens, right? And there's no, you know, Oh well, I would just plant a garden. OK, Well, if you don't already have one, it's not going to freaking happen, right? So it's like, or if you don't already know how to hunt or fish, it's not going to happen. And EMP attacks are not that crazy or that far fetched. It really doesn't take that much to do that you know, And our our our structure in the United States is pretty it's pretty weak, unfortunately for so that being said, it's important to know what the heck is flying around over our country. You know it.

18:38 When's the next time, you know, if if everyone said NASCAR it it's not that big of a deal and turn to blind eye once when's the next time another balloon flies over, you know, one of our major, you know, energy infrastructures in the United States and detonates and causes an EMP and knocks out power to several states, right. And just like oh should have seen it coming. You know, maybe we would have if we were focused on what was flying around in the air above us right. So I I think that from a non alien extraterrestrial perspective, for a guy like me, finding out what is in our airspace and having having the avenues to report it and to investigate it is actually critical to the survivability of this nation.

19:25 First thing I want to say is that if anybody has never read the series, I don't know what the whole series is called, but the first book is called One Second After. And the author is William R Fortuneson covers a very similar topic to what Jake was just talking about. It was, it's such a good book that it was actually talked about on the congressional floor. They brought William our Fortune to talk about nuclear attacks and EMP dangers here in the United States. Very, very good series. But my question to you, Jake, do you, how do you feel about this going from a federal, a federal topic to a state topic? I think it'll be faster.

20:13 We'll probably get information a lot faster because anything that happens federally, I know it's hard to to imagine, but it takes a really long Dang time. And unfortunately we have things like Congress who both sides and never seem to agree on anything. And so there's always government shutdowns and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all this sort of stuff. I think if it moves from a purely federal level to a state level, people are going to get the information that they want a lot faster. I agree. I think it's a good thing, a very good thing. Whether it's little green men, interdimensionals or Russia, it's right. It's a good thing.

20:55 But yeah, no, if if anybody's squeamish, don't go looking up videos of of drone attacks from the Ukraine Russian war. It it's fucking brutal. It is. Nuts. And it's pretty insane reality that people are can just go to like, well, Sears doesn't exist anymore. But like you could go to, I don't know, Walmart and pick yourself up a drone and strap a grenade to it and then just fly it over someone just have a little little switch that just drops it. It's freaking nuts. But don't do that, kids. We're not going to do. That don't do that's that's mean. You ready for the third story, man? Yeah, yeah, alright.

21:39 Our third story shifts gears into consciousness research. On January 12th, 2026, researchers from MIT published a paper in the journal Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews. It's titled Transcranial Focused Ultrasound for Identifying the Neural Substrate of Conscious perception. It's a lot there, and what they're proposing could change how we study human consciousness. Here's they do need an acronym. Absolutely. Here's the breakthrough. They've developed a methodology using transcranial focus ultrasound, essentially a non invasive way to stimulate specific parts of the brain from the outside of the skull.

22:27 You can target deep brain structures without surgery, without inserting anything, without even using drugs. Now, we've had brain imaging tools before. Mris show us structure. EE, GS measure electrical activity. But those are passive. They show us what's already happening. Transcranial focused ultrasound is different. It actively stimulates the brain and lets the researchers observe what happens. The lead researcher, Daniel Freeman from MI TS Lincoln Laboratory, put it like this quote. This is a tool that's not just useful for medicine or basic science, but could also help address the hard problem of consciousness.

23:10 That's a pretty big claim. The hard problem of consciousness is a term in neuroscience and philosophy. It's the question of how physical matter, meaning neurons, electrical signals, chemical reaction and Gray matter of your brain produces subjective experience. And how does the brain create the feeling of being you? Why does red look red to you? Why does pain feel like pain? Scientists have been trying to answer this for decades. And the problem is we can't just ask the brain, what are you doing right now? We have to infer it from behavior, from brain scans, from indirect measurements.

23:53 But transcranial focus, ultrasound changes that. You can stimulate a specific region, say the part of the brain involved in visual perception, and see what happens to conscious experience. Does the person see a flash of light? Do they perceive something that isn't there? Can you temporarily alter their sense of self? This gets into some pretty profound territory. The paper specifically mentions using this tool to identify, quote, the neural substrate of conscious perception. That means finding the exact brain circuits that generate consciousness not just actively in the brain, but the specific mechanisms that create your sense of awareness. The research team includes MIT, the University of Florida, Bergam and Women's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. This isn't fringe science.

24:47 This is major institutions collaborating on what might be one of the biggest questions in neuroscience. Now here's why this matters beyond just science. If we can identify what creates consciousness in the brain, it has implications for everything. Medical ethics. How do we treat patients in comas or vegetative states? Are they conscious in ways we can't detect? Artificial intelligence could recreate conscious machines. If so, what are our ethical obligations to them? And philosophy? What does this tell us about the nature of reality? Free will? The soul. These are questions that religions, philosophers and scientists have been grappling with forever. And now we have a tool that might actually provide some answers.

25:32 The researchers are calling this a road map for consciousness research. They're laying out how to use this technology systematically to probe the deepest questions about human experience. It's early. This is a mythology methodology paper. This is a methodology paper. Not a final answer, but it represents a massive step forward in our ability to study what makes conscious beings. All right, Jake, pretty interested in what you think. Your consciousness, the soul, what makes us human? What do you think? This is an interesting look. I, I don't know, I know there's been a lot of stuff going on recently as far as technological advances. And in trying to, I think you talked about it and one of your one of your standalone things where people are, are getting to the point where they might be able to actually like record your dreams.

26:30 And people are having similar dreams and stuff with similar, you know, monsters and everything and inside of them. And it's like, oh, that's weird. But it's like, yeah, I mean, I think that anything that has to do with finding something that's non physical is interesting. I mean, in relation to like, you know, the human body, because that's one thing that the reason why science has grappled it for so long is because consciousness is energy and non physical. But where does it come from? You know, what part of the brain is responsible for that? And I think that it would be very interesting to check up on this later and see, you know, what their findings are because I'm just as curious as as anyone, you know, is it in the the frontal lobe? And that's why, you know, people got, you know, they got ice picked back in the day and then they were just, you know, vegetables or, you know, were they in there somewhere? Is it the medulla oblongata right in the back? You know, where is it, you know, specifically that makes you? No, well, I'm me, right?

27:40 Where where is this exactly? You know, for the longest time science said they was, you know, it was in your heart, right? And then through research and everything like, Nope, the heart is a muscle. It contracts and it pumps blood. So it's not there, right? And you can get a heart transplant and you don't lose your sense of self. So obviously that's not it, right? And so we is it in your guts? No, no, that was me eat food and make poop so you can get you can get parts of your guts cut out and you still remain you, although maybe a a smaller version of you right, So that's not it right. So eventually it will happen. The only my only concern is when they you know, you just mentioned making conscious robots, right, AI and stuff. I think that's frightening only to the the portion of you know, what if that was a thing, right?

28:42 You had something that wasn't as weak or as flimsy as the human body is in some regards, and it says may I metal. So it's pretty impervious to most things. And also it has to make up its own sense of morality, you know, because that's essentially what morality is. I think when you get into a religious aspect, I'm taking morality from God, right? That's where my morality is based. When you get into what other people think is morality is all subjective, right? And so that's why you can get in some really hairy situations with like other countries. Where is it, you know, appropriate for China to be genociding the Uyghur population, you know, the Muslim population in in China?

29:23 But no, obviously not. But they think it is because their morals are subjective and say, Hey, these people are are less than people and therefore we can do whatever we want to with them, right. And so if you had a machine that had that sort of subjective moral state where it was like, well, why isn't it appropriate to kill everyone wearing a red shirt, right? And they, it could just decide, well, for me, it's not, it's not inappropriate. It's totally justifiable for whatever reason I just came up with, right, That's where it would get for me, pretty scary, especially with how quickly everyone's just jumping into this whole AI thing and robotics and you got Tesla working on them and all that sort of stuff. You know, it might not be the helper bot that you want. It might be the one that forces you inside your house and and will not let you outside because it deemed, you know, your flu too bad to risk exposing to other people and then you just starve to death in your house because you literally can't escape, right?

30:24 So because it deemed it morally necessary to keep you locked away and kidnapped inside your own home, right? I don't know, is it possible? Could be. You're unlocked, bro. Oh man, I I besides all that, right? Very interesting thoughts there. I just always I I've always been fascinated by consciousness in general, especially in organic beings, not AI or. Share. Lots of cyborgs or whatnot. This is this comes back to a conversation that I had in, in college a long time ago and I brought this up right.

31:06 We talked about moving individual cells from one brain to another brain and, and eventually swapping everybody's minds, right. And when would consciousness actually flip? I can't remember what episode that was, but I got a lot of really good feedback about that particular exercise that we did in that episode. If I can remember, I'll try to put that in the show notes for those episodes. So anybody can go and check that out. I'm not going to rehash that, but it brings up a point in the conversation that we had with the professor during, during that class where he has a very simple question. What's the difference between your brain and a piece of beef in the grocery store?

31:55 And, you know, everyone comes out and they say, oh, it's neurons. And he's like, OK, well, what are neurons? Neurons are pathways for electrical pulses that send information from one point to another point, right? And your brain is riddled with them. They, it's a ton of them. And he's like, OK, cool. So if I electrocuted that same piece of beef at the, at the grocery store, does it now have consciousness? And they're like, no, well, you have to have neurons. And he's like, oh, OK, what's the difference between that and just electrocuting it? And like, well, information, he's like, OK, so if I took an Ethernet cord that was plugged in and I ripped, ripped off the connector and and jammed that piece of meat with it, he goes boom. Now you have electrical currents with information, He goes, is it conscious?

32:44 No, it's not. Right. So what's, what's the real difference here? And you know, there was a lot of people that got into a more technical part of the conversation where we started talking about bytes, right? Same, same way the computers work a binary systems, ones and zeros and how you can create this conversation between you and me over the Internet, right, by utilizing just ones and zeros, your brains doing something similar to that. And he's like, well, how did it get coded to do that? And it it, it just there's an endless amount of conversations or questions that you could ask when someone comes up and they answer one of one of the questions. There's always a question that goes beyond that. And I just, I think it's fascinating I think it's fascinating that a chunk of meat inside of our skulls can create consciousness and there's people that say, well consciousness isn't consciousness unless you have the system, right. You have to have the whole system, the spinal cord, the the fingers, the kidneys, the the eardrums, the everything. It's all got to be there.

33:59 And like, well, some people lose their eyes all the time. Right. Yeah. People lose a foot. I mean, you can remove a piece of the system and you're still conscious. I mean, remove enough and you're going to die from blood loss, right? Overtime. Overtime. It can't be all at once. But I don't know it's, it's a, it's a really good question. And I would, I, I really interested to see where this, this research goes because. I like that part that you put in there about it relating to people that are in comas because that's always been AII. Don't know if there's any actual science behind that besides that, you know, it's, it's if they are consciously aware inside of their coma, hearing your voice, reading them a book or playing music for them would be comforting, right? And I think that on the adverse side of that, the people that are going to see the their friend or their family member who, whoever it is that is in this conscious state, it is also healing for them to spend time with them and feel as though they're caring for and nurturing this person. But the really interesting question is, does it make a difference?

35:13 You know, are they alert? And, you know, if they could scan the brain and find out where consciousness is in people that are functioning normally, then they could also scan the brain, then take that into people that are in a unconscious state and see if there's anything lighting up right there. Because if there's not, then you know, it might give you the feel goods, but you're just wasting your time, right? Because I'll, I've had several surgeries now where I've been put under and I, there was one where I had a pretty intense dream. But other than that, you know, I don't remember anything, right? I don't remember the doctors talking. I don't remember they, they even told me like when I was coming out of the anesthesia, which is essentially a chemical unconscious state is what they're putting you in, right?

36:04 And they were like, yeah, we had a full conversation. You know, we woke you up, had a full conversation, let you know how the procedure went and all that stuff. And I don't expect you have any memory of that. I was like, Nope, sure. No, you know, and he's like, Yep, you were talking to me. I was talking to you and you completely understood. He's like, but you're probably, you probably aren't going to remember that and you you won't remember that, right? And but I don't know if being unconscious through a coma would be necessarily the same as a chemical unconsciousness like anesthesia, right, where they have to put you under for something. And it's, you know, if they could, if we could get to the point where you could then read what someone is or observe what someone is thinking and stuff inside of their heads, that's where. I was going to.

36:56 That would be interesting if if I stay on the the coma side of it, what would that look like? A 10 year coma? Is that just endless deep thoughts? Is there communications elsewhere going on? Is there, are you talking to God while you're in it? You know what's going on, right? What is your brain doing? What is your conscious state inside of a coma? If we could get to a point where we could observe what that looks like, right, For any a manner of time, you know, say someone is is put into a coma for, you know, healing and stuff that sometimes happens after traumatic things like, you know, IED attacks and things like that, where there's so much damage. It would just be better to put this person into a coma for the next 30 days so their body can heal versus having them moving and having all their arms and limbs, you know, all, you know, all manner of chaos going on, you know, having that discomfort and that pain.

37:51 So they are put into that state, you know, But what does that look like from the inside from their perspective, right? Is it just like, oh, you fall asleep and you wake up 30 days later and you're like, wow, I have a beard and I don't crave cigarettes anymore, you know, is that? What it? Is, or is it, you know, an actual knowledge of the passing of time in this isolated prison inside your own head? I. Was going to say, could you imagine that sentence? Oof. I believe it'd. Be brutal. And I mean, we have, we have a lot of scientific evidence that says, you know, depending on the severity of the coma, we have evidence saying that people are conscious during it. We have a lot of people that come out of comas that say, yeah, I remember you sitting by my bed, you telling me this, you telling me that.

38:40 But we also have the same information for near death experiences and one's looked at, as you know, just from the general public, from the, the layman's point of view, right? One's more believable than the other, depending on, on who you are. I know a lot of people that would, that will swear up and down near death experiences are legitimate and they need to be studied because it, it's a, it's our key to understanding what the afterlife is like. And then you have people that don't believe that at all, but they will believe that consciousness is very active during comatose state. So it it would be very interesting. And the other connection that I kind of thought about when I was writing up this script for this story is the possibility, like what if we find this, we find where consciousness is created, where it is stored.

39:40 And we use that to confirm another topic that we talked about here on the infinite rabbit hole, the split brain theory. What if we discovered that there is in fact 2 consciousness inside of each person's head? And you know, a coma is simply, you know, not maybe not a medically induced one, but a tragedy induced 1 where one consciousness, let's say, you know, one side of your brain does shut down. I mean, your, your coma is the definition of a coma. It then becomes something along the lines of consciousness ceases. But the other hemisphere, the right side of your brain, which is not your commutative side, which we do see come forward in a lot of these split brain patients, is there, it's glowing, it's saying, hey, there's consciousness on the right side, but it cannot communicate because the right side of the brain does not communicate, right?

40:41 That'd be scary. I don't know. I just little rabbit holes I went down during. Also, too, you have those freaks that come out of comas and they're like suddenly fluent in Chinese when they were only fluent in French, you know, prior to that. And it's just like, where did that come from? That was literally one of the very first subjects I wanted to cover on this show, and we never covered it. And we never will now. Yeah, it's like, it's like coma savant syndrome or something. Yeah, something. I know there's savants, right? We're we should be pretty familiar with what a savant is. But there's people who get this savant knowledge and know how in a particular thing like Jake was just saying like Chinese or can play perfect guitar.

41:34 You know, something completely that was irrelevant in their lives prior to that incident is now something that's that's very highlighted. It's very and they're fucking amazing at it. Anyways, you ready for the fourth topic. Yeah, sorry man. No, no, you're. Good. Wrap up all of our time on this. You're good. I actually was not the one I thought you were going to go off on, so that's cool. I like that. There you go. Actually, so this is my favorite topic of the night. This this four story. I love this. This is cool. All right, last story before we get into deep dive. And this one's kind of weird. There's a Cryptid investigation happening right now in Washington state near the Columbia River Gorge. Multiple witnesses are reporting sightings of a massive black feline.

42:26 Get this, Jake with the face of a primate. And the location might explain why this thing exists, if it exists at all. The reports describe a creature that's part big cat, part something else. Jet black fur, the body structure of a large feline, but the facial features don't match any known animal. Witnesses are saying it has a primate like face. Some are calling it the Ape Cat. Now here's where it gets interesting. The sightings are concentrated around forest near an old World War 2 era nuclear facility or facilities. The Hanford Site is in that region. It was one of the primary locations for plutonium production during the Manhattan Project. The facility operated for decades, and there's documented contamination in the area.

43:21 The show Expedition X picked up on these reports and is actively investigating. The team is looking into whether there's any connection between the sightings and the nuclear history of the area. Could decades of radiation exposure have caused mutations in local wildlife? Is there a known animal that's been altered somehow, or is it just misidentification of a regular animal under unusual conditions? Phil Torres and Heather Amaro are leading the investigation. They're tracking down witnesses, looking for physical evidence, meaning tracks, hair samples, anything that can confirm that this thing is real. And they're examining the link to the abandoned government site. Now, crypto reports near nuclear facilities aren't new. There's a long history of strange sightings around these locations.

44:08 Think Blackbird. Chernobyl. Whether that's because radiation actually causes mutations, or because these remote, restricted areas provide habitat for unusual wildlife, or because people expect to see weird things near nuclear sites and therefore do well, that's the question. The thing is, credible witnesses are coming forward, not just one person seeing something in the dark. Multiple independent reports describing the same general characteristics. A large predator that doesn't match known species in the region. Could it be a bear? Sure. Could it be a Mountain Lion seen at an odd angle? Possible. Could it be an escaped exotic pet?

44:48 Maybe. But the consistency of the descriptions, Specifically the primate facial features on a feline body, is unusual enough to warrant investigation. And that's what Expedition X is doing. They're not assuming it's real. They're not assuming it's fake. They're investigating the claims, interviewing witnesses and looking for evidence. If there is something out there, the Columbia River Gorge provides plenty of cover. Dense forest, rugged terrain, limited human access. It's kind of environment where an unknown animal could potentially go undetected for years. We'll keep an eye on this one as the investigation continues. If they find anything concrete, physical evidence, clear footage, confirm tracks, We'll make sure to come back to this topic if anything comes of it. All right, Jake, what do you think of the ape kit Kit? You know, I didn't know Expedition X was a thing. I I just looked it up and yeah, it's Josh Gates from Expedition Unknown.

45:45 I'm I'm going to have to get into that. I I really like that, that show. So I'm going to have to going to have to check it out, you know. Excuse me. I just this week saw two animals that I didn't know existed on Google. One was a cat and the other one was a bird and both of them kind of tripped me out a little bit. I didn't a Somali cat and I can't remember the bird was but I'm pretty sure it was from Australia because that place is very strange. It wasn't the Shoebill. No, no. I wasn't that one looks crazy too. No, it was like it's like a grey bird and it's the way its head is shaped with its feathers.

46:30 It looks like it has a roundhead with like a super long mouth, but it's just because the feathers kind of like lay over its beak and it opens up its mouth super wide and it looks just crazy. But anyway, 2 animals I didn't know existed. I would say there's a strong likelihood that when people are out tromping around the scraggly woods and they see something they've never seen before, that most of the time it could be something that like, you know, everyone thinks, oh, exotic pets, how exotic could it be? It's like, yeah, there's some really weird, like, like if you saw it, you'd be like, I have no idea what I just looked at now.

47:10 A cat with a primate's face. Could it be just a really jacked up looking cat, like a with the skin face, like no hair on his face, Right. I mean, yeah, but it's interesting. It's also interesting that's around the nuclear sites. And I agree with you. You know, people often times go out looking for things and then oh, sure enough, they find the things they're looking for. You know, it's like whether that's from pareidolia, I think that's what it's called when you just see faces in the trees and then you got to put a red circle around it so everyone sees what you're taking a picture of. And then there's, you know, just misidentification or, you know, just the creep factor.

47:51 You're just like, it's dark. It's scary. Oh, I might get arrested for trespassing. Oh, what's that? You know, it's like everything all creeped out and everything. Your brain just goes nuts. But yeah, I'll definitely have to get back into this and see if anything comes from the ape. Cat probably could have came up with a better name than that because everyone's going to look at that with any sort of credibility and be like, no. Yeah. We're not going to get into this one. You know, you start describing it, you're like half cat, half something else, half this and with the 8 face. And I was like, it just reminded me of South Park Man, bear, pig, half man, half bear and half pig. I'm super serial guys.

48:33 Like. They're like, OK, well, hey, you know, the world's a big place, why not? Let's throw another Cryptid in there. I don't know, I just, I, I love cryptids, man. I love, I love when, when in there in the, the news or, you know, I, I like searching deep for some obscure Cryptid sightings. I mean, you know, the Bigfoot sighting here and there is cool, the BFRL report, whatever. But I like this because it's it's new. It's not something that I've rarely ever, you know, read up on before. It's interesting. It's got a fun story. You know, the nuclear site thing is always fun to read about. Not necessarily saying it's awesome, but it's fun, right? And a lot for a lot of people, that makes it believable. I'm not saying I'm one of those, but it's a lot of people. It will check that block for them. All right, you ready to move on to the deep dive segment? The end cap of the night?

49:29 Yeah, dude. All right, And for our Deep Dive segment for the night, we're heading to Washington, DC in a small dairy town in Brazil. January 20th, 2026, the National Press Club in Washington DC, investigative filmmaker James Fox held what he calls a landmark UAP press conference, and the people he brought with them. Brazilian eyewitnesses, American insiders, medical professionals, and a few other big names in the world of ufology are making claims that, if true, would fundamentally change our understanding of what's been happening on this planet.

50:15 Now before we get into what was said at this press conference, we need to understand the Virginia incident itself because the story goes back 30 years and it's been largely ignored by American media despite being one of the most well documented UFO and extraterrestrial cases in history. For a much deeper dive into what incur occurred in Virginia, check out our documentary episode from July 6th, 2023 titled Episode 132 Virginia ETS. Virginia is a small city in Minas Cherise, Brazil, population around 130,000. It's a dairy and agriculture community, quiet, working class people. Not the kind of place you'd expect to become the center of an international UFO incident.

51:04 On January 20th, 1996, exactly 30 years before this press conference, exactly to the date something crashed near Virginia, multiple witnesses reported seeing a cigar shaped metallic object in the sky moving erratically, trailing smoke. It appeared to be in distress. What happened next is where this case gets extraordinary. Over the following days, residents of Virginia reported encountering strange creatures. The most famous incident involved three young women, Lillian Silva, Valkyra Silva and Katya Xavier. They're walking home in the afternoon when they saw a strange when they saw a strange humanoid like being crouched against a crumbling wall in a vacant lot.

51:55 They described it as bipedal, about four to five feet tall, with brown oily skin, a large head, enormous red eyes and three bumps on the top of its head that resembled in some sense horned. It had long arms, unusual feet, and appeared to be injured or distressed, and the smell was overwhelming. They described it as ammonia mix with sulfur. Yum. In response to this encounter of the women rant, they told their families and the word spread through the community. But here's the thing, they weren't the only ones who saw these creatures or creature. Over the next several days, multiple independent witnesses reported similar encounters.

52:40 A military police officer named Marco Cherise reportedly captured one of these strange bipedal beings. According to reports, he became I'll shortly afterward and died within a week under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death was listed as a severe infection, but his family has always maintained there's more to the story. Residents reported seeing military trucks, specifically Brazilian army vehicles, moving through the town at odd hours. The local zoo reported unusual activity. A veterinarian named Leela Cabral allegedly examined something that wasn't a known animal. And local firefighters were reportedly involved in a capture operation.

53:22 In a capture operation. And then, just as quickly as it started, everything went quiet. Official denials, Military personnel transferred witnesses intimidated. The Brazilian government said nothing unusual happened in Virginia in January 1996. But the story didn't go away. Researchers started investigating. Ubahara Ubahara Ubahara Franco Rodriguez, a Brazilian UFO researcher, spent years documenting witness testimony. He interviewed over 60 people connected to the incident. The consistency of the reports were striking.

54:06 American researchers eventually picked the story. James Fox was one of those. He spent decades making documentaries about UFO cases such as the Out of the Blue, I Know What I saw, the phenomenon and moment of contact. That last one is entirely about, for Gina, the moment of contact. He traveled to Brazil, interviewed witnesses, tracked down military personnel, built a comprehensive case file. And now 30 years later, he brought some of those witnesses to Washington, DC. Now moving on to the actual press conference at the National Press Club.

54:46 At the National Press Club, the press conference featuring Brazilian eyewitnesses ranging from those who saw the creature, people who saw the military response and others who have been living with this story for three decades. And it also featured American insiders, people claiming they worked on crash retrieval programs, people alleging they've been involved in the study of non human biologics. These are the kinds of claims that historically would get you laughed out of the place, such as this story. Conference hall. But this wasn't a room full of UFO enthusiasts. This was the National Press Club. Journalist from major outlets were there. The event was live streamed.

55:28 These witnesses weren't anonymous Internet users. They were on camera, on record, willing to be identified. James Fox's stated goal was clear push for expanded whistle blower protection and greater transparency. He wants the US government to acknowledge that it knows about non human intelligence and crash retrieval programs. And he's using the Virgina case as evidence that this isn't just an American phenomenon. Rather, this is an issue that includes the entire planet and all of its nations. The medical evidence presented at the conference is particularly interesting. There are claims of physical effects on people who came into contact with these entities, such as Marco Cherise's death and other witnesses reporting illness. By providing these witnesses, Fox didn't just report another UFO sighting among the ocean of others, he provided tangible evidence of biological consequences of personnel encounters, of personal encounters with these non human intelligences.

56:32 The American insiders at the conference tied Virginia into a larger narrative of global crash crash retrieval operations. The suggestion being that the US military or allied forces were involved in recovering materials or entities from the Brazil instant. That would explain the military presence, the quick response and the subsequent cover up. Now we have to be careful here. These are claims testimony, not physical evidence that's been independently verified. But the volume of witnesses, the consistency of the reports, the documentation that researchers like Fox have compiled, it's substantial enough that it can't simply just be dismissed.

57:15 It at least deserves an official look. So why does any of this matter? Here's the broader context. UAP disclosure has been accelerating. The Pentagon released Navy videos of unknown objects. Congress held public hearings. Whistleblowers like David Grush testified underoath about crash retrieval programs. The stigma around this topic has been eroding, but most of that focus has been on American military encounters. What the Virgina case represents is civilian interaction with non human entities, not just radar returns or fighter jet footage. People face to face was something they couldn't identify and it happened in a small town with ordinary people who had nothing to gain from this at all.

58:03 These aren't UFO researchers with books to sell. These are people who saw something traumatic, reported it, and then had to live with the consequences such as ridicule, intimidation, skepticism. They did it for 30 years. The fact that James Fox could bring these witnesses to the National Press Club in 2026 shows how much the conversation has shifted. Five years ago, this wouldn't have happened. The venue wouldn't have hosted it. The press wouldn't have shown up. It would have been regulated to late night radio in a few podcast YouTube channels. But today with the NDAA mandates we just discussed with congressional hearings, with credible military witness, with credible military witnesses coming forward, with the All domain Anomaly Resolution office operating openly, the Virginia story fits into a larger pattern of disclosure. So how do we evaluate this?

59:01 What's credible, What's speculation? James Fox has a track record. He's been investigating UFO cases for over 20 years. His documentaries are well researched, carefully sourced, and he's generally avoided the more sensational aspects of ufology. When he puts his name on something, it carries weight in his field. The Brazilian witnesses have been consistent for three decades. Their stories? They haven't changed. They're not making money off of this. Many of them wish they'd never seen what they saw because of their harassment and disbelief they've endured. Here's what we can say. The Virginia incident happened. Something occurred in that town in January of 1996.

59:43 Multiple independent witnesses reported unusual creatures. Military activity was documented. People got sick. A police officer died. These are facts. What those creatures were, where they came from, whether the military retrieved anything, those are the questions that we can't answer, and they're questions that deserve serious investigation, not dismissal. If there were non human entities in Virginia, where are they now? If material was retrieved, where did it go? What happened to Marco Cherise? What did the Brazilian military actually do during those days in January of 1996?

1:00:23 And to me the bigger question is if this happened in Brazil, has it happened elsewhere? Are there other cases like this that we don't know about because they occurred in countries without a Free Press or in remote areas or during times when reporting them wouldn't have been possible? The the Virginia incident suggests that contact with non human intelligence isn't just happening in controlled military encounters over the ocean. It's happening on the ground in populated areas with civilians as witnesses. The That alone changes the conversation entirely. The James Fox press conference at the National Press Club represents a milestone in UAP disclosure not because it provided definitive proof, extrustural visitation because it didn't, but because it brought credible witnesses, documented cases, and serious questions into an official venue where they can't be easily ignored.

1:01:23 The Verzena incident is real. The sightings were real. The witnesses, they're real people. What they saw now, that's still the question. But after 30 years of being told nothing happened, these people are finally being heard. Jake, my good Sir, Dots. Where did the little tiny aliens from last year? Where did that come from? Peru. Peru. Yeah, I. Don't know, I have a hard time believing that if there seems. Like really interesting information coming out about that, but. It's all fake, but.

1:02:03 I don't, I don't think. So the, the focus seems to be on, well, the United States, the UK for, you know, UAP sightings and things like that. I have a hard time believing that another nation wouldn't want the clout from just being like, Oh yeah, we'll check out what happened here and whip out a dead alien, right? Or something like that, or a spaceship. You know, I, I'm torn. I'm torn between the two thoughts of like, I don't know, it's probably nothing to well, if it was something, you know, they would be throwing that crap up everywhere just to have the the one up over the US government being like, Oh yeah, all your technology and guess what?

1:02:52 We actually have a body, you know, here it is, you know? Eat this America. Right, Right, right, right. Anyways, I don't know. I, I think the the Virginia Incident is amazing. It's fascinating, super interesting. If anybody wants to read a good book on the Virginia incident, this book right here. A UFO crash in Brazil, A genuine UFO crash with Surviving ETS by Doctor Rodger K Lear. Great book, awesome book. I didn't pretty much the entire documentary off of this book and documentary between the two of them pretty much got all the information I needed for that, that documentary episode.

1:03:41 I don't know. This brings up a lot of a lot of really good questions. Man, when it comes to ufology and its presence, I would say around the world. I, I wouldn't be surprised if there's parts of the world where this is just more common. Like people accept it more. They know it's a thing. I mean, there are a ton of of really good UFO stories and alien contact stories coming out of South America. I mean, the calories Brazil incident, that's that stuff's wild. And then there's this, I can't remember what country it's in, but it's either somewhere in Central or South America where it, it's a it's an Ocean City. It's like right, right on the coast. And they're literally known as like the UFO capital of the world.

1:04:35 It's, it's crazy. I'm going to have to look this up real quick. They just have these regular stories or incidents with UFOs all the time. There's stories that come out of the Australian Outback. There's stories that come out from South Africa, from the Congo. I mean, there's a lot of stories coming from everywhere in the world. And it's, this is not a, an American phenomenon. And I understand like there's, you know, people will jump overseas, go to England and the first thing that they'll do is go to rental sham. And there's not a lot going on when it comes to a lot of the other European countries, at least in the mainstream UFO logical circles.

1:05:23 But that's actually very false. One of the very earliest concepts of UFOs were ghost rockets from Scandinavia. That was before Foo Fighters like Foo Fighters and ghost rockets came out pretty much neck and neck. Ghost rockets were slightly before them during World War 2. There's there's UFO records from everywhere in the world, ma'am. And I, I wouldn't be surprised if this is more commonplace where we look at it as sort of like this pseudo topic, this, this taboo, if you will, right for a lot of people to talk about. And I mean, we're, we're slowly moving our way out of that. But I think that I, there's got to be somewhere in this, in, in the world.

1:06:15 In fact, there might be even more places in the world where this is just knowledge. They know that there's something and they see it all the time. They're openly talking about it. I wouldn't be surprised. I OK, so it's not any big like any big surprise that my go to when it comes to the idea of if there are actual aliens visiting people or UFOs being seen or like it's called ships or whatever it is that it's demonic deception, right? I'd be curious to see if there's any correlation between the paganism or practicing the occult or spiritual sort of witch doctor Y things going on and then the appearance of said aliens or UFOs and stuff.

1:07:14 Because if you say things like, you know, the, the Outback in Australia or in parts of Africa, witchcraft is crazy popular in Africa. Like it's a real big issue for a lot of people in Africa because with that witchcraft comes like child sacrifice and all kinds of stuff. Like it's really, really, really popular. And if there's areas that are where people are doing stuff like that or tribes or societies or, you know, whatever towns that are doing things like that, and then also having a high degree of UFO sightings and alien encounters, that would be something that'd be interesting to see a parallel between versus versus just the average, you know, guy sitting on his couch watching late night television and then every so often be like, Oh yeah. And then the aliens land in my backyard, you know, versus a consistent, you know, relationship or a consistent encounter, you know, And then on the other side, it could just be the remoteness.

1:08:15 It could be just like the the apparent dinosaurs. They're in the Amazon where the tribe try. People were like, Oh yeah, we see them all the time. It's like, it's like, beware. It's like, oh, around, you know, humble up on them. Oh, there's a brontosaurus right there. You know, it's just like. Right there and. Like the the population of white moose that are supposed to be in the Amazon to be like, Oh yeah, we see them all the time just standing up on rocks and stuff, you know, being moose. So it's like could be a 2 fold I suppose. Yeah, but that would be an interesting research thing for me. I I doubt I would be very skeptical that there is information of a correlation like that, but it'd be interesting. You should look up Mckelly and Bende. That sounds familiar.

1:09:07 That is the Congo dinosaur. That's what I think I was talking about, just didn't have the name for it and the area was wrong and everything that I said was wrong. There's a, there's a book, actually, I think I have it. It's called The Drums of the Congo. I think it's called Drums, Drums along the Congo On the Trail of Mckelly and Membe, The Last Living Dinosaur by Rory Nugent. Another excellent book. Very, very good. Good book. All right, man.

1:09:48 Oh. Look up the bird I've I found it, the Tawny TAWNY. Share your screen guy. No, I haven't. You got to look it up. Tawny Frogmouth. Tawny like is in the color tawny. Yeah, Tawny Frogmouth. This is the bird that I saw that I was like, I've never seen anything like this before. Oh man, look at that. That thing's weird. Right. I'm not saying if I saw this, I think it was a Cryptid, but I'd certainly be like, yeah, I don't know what I just saw. Especially this one with it's red looking eyes sitting on this stick and it just looks like a leaf.

1:10:29 Yeah, that one, that first picture, that looks weird, man. I just feel like I I saw a stick looking at me. They kind of look like like they'd be some form of owl, but not like an owl lizard. Yeah, that's. Very strange. It's what it reminds me of, like an owl lizard. But I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm like super big into animals and bugs and all kinds of stuff, all the stuff that crawls and flies and creeps along the ground and, you know, 'cause I, for me, I mean, it's just a whole, like, you know, God's masterpiece, right? His love letter to us is just the variety of things that are on the earth. But in 34 years, I had never seen that before until a week ago.

1:11:15 So if one of those was taken from Australia, which I was right on the, it's probably from there, it is. But if it was taken from Australia and put in, you know, a cage somewhere in like, Manhattan and then got out and then someone just, like, sees it there, they there's a likelihood that they could be like, yeah, I have no idea what I just saw. You know, I mean, if it was like that posed up on a branch, be like, I just saw a tree limb with eyeballs staring at me, What is that, you know, type stuff. And then that's how you get encrypted. Ends up being something completely natural, just not from here, right? Yep, I agree, but cryptids also include out of place animals. That's a classification encrypted. I didn't know that.

1:12:05 Really. Yeah. Yeah. Like Midwestern Kangaroos, Midwestern Kangaroos, Kryptids. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Southern swamp chimpanzees. Yeah, it's a ape cat. Yeah, Ape Kitty. All right. Jacked up looking face. Bye. That is the end of the first episode of the new era of the Infinite Rabbit Hole, where we are your new source for the strange, the weird, the unknown, and all the stuff that you love that we love. That's it. All right. I don't know how to end this. We're just going to say bye bye buddy. Yeah, see you in the next fork of the path of the infant rabbit hole.

1:12:49 Hopefully we're all alive next week and we haven't been attacked by the aliens yet. Or. Or impede. Even if we do, we should still do an episode. We'll. We can't do an episode. We're. Bringing No, we can't. But we can't. If we're attacked by aliens, we can let everybody know that we're attacked by aliens. Right. And then they'll get it the next day and be like, yeah, dude, we know there's aliens and we can see them. Just in case you don't know. Yeah, just in case you were. Here's the infinite rabbit hole. Late to the story again. Yeah, right. All right, everybody have a good night. Good night. Bye. Bye.

1:13:33 Hey everybody, thanks for checking out the Infinite Rabbit Hole podcast. If you're looking for more of our stuff, head on over to infiniterabbithole.com where you can find links to all the podcast players that we are available on and even our video platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. While you're there, make sure to check out all the links for our socials and hit that follow so you know when all the new stuff from our podcast comes out. And until next time, travelers, we'll see you right here in the next fork in the path of the Infinite Rabbit hole. Bye.