Turn The Page To 2026

Need To Know

Bryce Zabel

Society & Culture, News

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2026

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Need to Know year-end special, Bryce Zabel and Richard Dolan look back at 2025 as a year defined less by breakthroughs and more by normalization, confusion, and institutional digestion of the UAP issue. They revisit major moments including congressional hearings, the drone wave that flared and faded without resolution, the rise and limits of documentaries like Age of Disclosure, and high-profile figures such as Marco Rubio and Lue Elizondo. A recurring theme is the paradox of progress without clarity: more official attention, more testimony, more media coverage, yet no decisive evidence or conceptual resolution, leaving the public both validated and frustrated

Looking ahead to 2026, both hosts express skepticism that traditional disclosure is imminent. Dolan argues the phenomenon is being absorbed into bureaucracy as a permanent governance issue rather than treated as a mystery to be solved, while Zabel points to culture as the real accelerator, especially with Steven Spielberg's upcoming film Disclosure Day potentially shaping public perception more than government action. Together, they suggest the future of the UFO question may hinge not on official revelation, but on cultural shifts, independent research, and the possibility of an undeniable event that forces the issue into the open.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Need to Know, news, context, and analysis about anomalous phenomena.
0:12.1	Here's some real talk from two authors who literally wrote the book on disclosure.
0:17.1	From New York, Richard Dolan.
0:19.0	From Los Angeles, Bryce Zabel.
0:21.3	Let's get started. Hey, happy New Year, everybody Dolan. From Los Angeles, Bryce Zabel. Let's get started.
0:22.9	Hey, happy New Year, everybody, and welcome to Need to Know.
0:25.8	I'm Bryce Zabel, and I'm here with my partner, Rich Dolan.
0:28.3	He'll be out in a minute.
0:29.7	And yes, you're probably hearing this on January 1st, 2026, which means two things.
0:36.9	One, you're either the kind of person who starts the year with
0:39.7	coffee, resolve, and a serious interest in the UFO mystery, or you fell asleep on the
0:45.0	couch at midnight and woke up to us, which honestly, much respect. Either way, today's
0:50.8	episode is our sort of turn-the-page episode, to look back at what just happened in 25 and a look forward at what might be coming at us in 26.
0:59.0	In the UAP world, in the disclosure world, and the, wait, did that just really happen world?
1:04.7	Because 2025 had a certain vibe.
1:08.3	There were some new claims, some new players, old stories with fresh twists,
1:13.2	and a few moments were even longtime watchers of this subject did a double take. So we're going
1:18.4	to be doing what we always try to do here, separate the signal from the noise, keep our feet
1:23.1	to the ground and still look up because that's where the mystery is, except that sometimes the mystery
1:28.3	is in the sea, which takes me to my partner in crime here, Rich Dolan, because he and I are the
1:34.0	guys that dive into this curiosity and occasional conspiracy. So, Rich, welcome back to the show.
1:39.9	Happy New Year, my friend. How did the holidays treat you? Hey, Bryce. Thanks for having me back again. I love being here with you.
	...

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