The Hardest UFO Cases to Dismiss: Something Is Flying Around and We Don't Know What It Is
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.3 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2026
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Michael Shermer talks with filmmaker James Fox, whose work has helped push UFOs, now often called UAPs, out of the tabloid shadows and into congressional hearings, radar logs, and sworn testimony.
Fox has spent three decades interviewing fighter pilots, radar operators, intelligence officials, scientists, and firsthand witnesses. His conclusion is not that we know what these objects are, but that dismissing them no longer works. Around 90 to 95 percent of sightings collapse under scrutiny. The remaining cases do not.
The question is: What are we supposed to do with what's left?
James Fox is a film director widely regarded as one of the leading voices in UFO filmmaking. He is known for documentaries such as The Phenomenon, The Program, and Moment of Contact, several of which are frequently cited among the best UFO documentaries ever made.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It was 1966 at a school just outside Melbourne, Westall High School in primary, I think. |
| 0:06.0 | And there were, according to the teacher and all the students, almost 400 people out in broad daylight. |
| 0:10.0 | And you have this disc hovering above, you know, doing things you shouldn't be doing, |
| 0:14.0 | and the teachers looking at it, the science teacher, Mr. Greenwood looking at it, |
| 0:17.0 | and then it comes down to lands. |
| 0:18.0 | This general looked at me and he was like pretty much |
| 0:20.9 | laughing in my face. He goes, kid, you expect us to come forward and you employ us to protect |
| 0:26.9 | and secure our airspace and say, hey, there are craft of unknown origin displaying a highly |
| 0:34.7 | advanced technology. They don't have any wings, any tail, any visible means propulsion. |
| 0:39.4 | They fly rings are our fastest jets. They penetrate the most sensitive airspace on the planet. |
| 0:45.3 | We don't know who they are, where they come from, or what they want. We have no visible means |
| 0:49.1 | of defense against them. Shall they turn to be hostile? Thank you. And good night. He goes, do you honestly |
| 0:53.3 | think that we're going to tell the general public that? He's looked at me. Like, you really think that's what we're |
| 0:58.4 | going to do? |
| 1:03.5 | Hey, everybody. It's Michael Shermer. It's time for another episode of the Michael Shermer show. My guest |
| 1:08.4 | today is James Fox. He's the director and film producer, probably the leading voice in UFO filmmaking in space, is behind the immensely popular films such as The Phenomenon, a comprehensive history of some of the best known and most puzzling UFO incidences worldwide. Last year, Fox released The Program, which explored the |
| 1:30.0 | unprecedented bipartisan congressional effort to uncover what intelligence agencies really know |
| 1:35.7 | about UFOs and UAPs. In 2022, Fox released the prequel to his latest film, Moment of Contact, |
| 1:45.9 | which delved into what's being called the Roswell or Brazil, and was lauded as one of the best UFO documentaries. |
| 1:50.7 | Additional films from Mr. Fox include UFO's 50 Years of Denial, Out of the Blue, and I Know |
| 1:57.4 | What I Saw. |
| 1:58.9 | In the new film, Moment of Contact, so the new title is, subtitle is, |
... |
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