What brought you into this conversation? How do we run into each other on the UAP topic? Yeah, it's a

strange one.

So basically, I've been a career cinematographer for about the last 30 years.

I do a little bit of everything, but for a living, I've made a living as a cinematographer.

So I worked for pretty much every studio, hundreds of independent production companies living in Los Angeles.

In 2020, the world slowed down, and I had to make some life decisions, what I wanted to do with the one life that I know I have.

And so for better or worse, that became aerospace.

Went to

And Mike Melville was, correct me if I'm wrong, he was like in his 60s, like 64, 65 when he became a private astronaut, the first private astronaut?

Yeah.

He was the first private astronaut, the very first.

And yes, he was 64 when he did it.

So him and Bert went way back.

Mike had never graduated high school.

Uh, he met Bert because he was in, he was living in Indiana at the time.

But why did you decide to include that piece? Yeah,

Uh, X could be facing, uh, a very big sanction if it, uh, is found to be non-compliant.

Yeah, that's under GDPR.

Um, uh, the, is- the same applies actually if companies are found to have data breaches, but up to 20 million or 4% of the global turnover, um, is there.

And it, it seems of late that the wind of change is blowing in the social platform space, that what platforms have got away with previously, um, seems to be coming under a lot of scrutiny.

Um, and in this case here, because the concerns here are that X is one of the social media platforms that allows pornographic content, although it, it's off by default when you sign up.

Like, for instance, I spend hours a, a day on X, and I never see any explicit material.

But the fact is that children, of course, still in Ireland, um, can sign up to these platforms at the age of 13.

Uh, but it's, it, it, it's puts a huge base of traffic in there for X.

[laughs]

There you go.

Uh, yeah, so when, when SpaceShipOne program, uh, came around, Burt had 30 pilots to choose from.

Ten had built their own airplane, and ultimately he chose four initially.

Uh, so it was...

I'll just go through the names really quick.

It was Doug Shane, Pete Siebold, uh, Mike Melvill, and Brian Binnie.

Going into Brian's flight, what was the sort of mood for that second flight so quickly after Mike had had quite a hairy ride on his, on his second flight?

But tell us a little bit about this digital wallet and what people can expect.

Yes, Ciara.

Um, so the digital wallet, i- it comes from the EU, because the EU have required that all the EU countries offer a digital wallet by Christmas Day this year.

Um, and of course then this digital wallet, again, is, is ...

It's, it's a wallet application on a smartphone, and you're able to upload your passport, your birth certs, um, driving license, and even your academic credentials.

And the idea is that, um, it'll work, um, EU-wide, of course, and that you're able to, you know, give your ID in some other country and it'll be recognized.

And, and also it can be used for wider aspects again, like perhaps, um, age verification for young people.

And Kevin, what does happen to them? If you don't have a Samsung or an Android or some kind of a phone, or if you don't have an, uh, an Apple phone, you don't have a smartphone at all, what, what do you do? Do you just produce your passport a- as you might have since the year dot?

Like, give us some more details about this, uh, [clears throat] this first private, the first private astronauts.

Yeah.

So basically, um, what happened was there was this guy, Burt Rutan, who was just this prodigy growing up.

He, he was like a Seventh Day Adventist.

Um, and he was a big dude when he was like a teenager, but his parents wouldn't let him play any sports.

So what he did was he just started building like all these model planes and, uh, entering them in competitions.

And so when he was like 15, he just started beating like adults and stuff and, you know, aerodynamic balsa wood planes and stuff.

Wow

Like, give us some more details about this, uh, [clears throat] this first private, the first private astronauts.

Yeah.

So basically, um What happened was there was this guy Burt Rutan who was just this prodigy growing up.

He, he was like a Seventh Day Adventist, um, and he was a big dude when he was, like, a teenager, but his parents wouldn't let him play any sports.

So what he did was he just started building, like, all these model planes and, uh, entering them in competitions.

And so when he was, like, 15, he just started beating, like, adults and stuff, and, you know, aerodynamic balsa wood planes and stuff.

And so he just chased that.

So when did the, uh, UFOs come in?

Talk us through what happens in those following days.

Yeah.

So kinda just to, uh, cue your viewers into what actually happened.

So when he hit the, uh, the runway, the, the right wheel snapped, and he went skidding off the runway at like, I don't know, 100 miles an hour into the dirt, and it just ripped up the entire hull and the wings of SpaceShipOne.

It snapped the wheel.

And so he's sitting in the cockpit just instantly realizing that he's not going to be a go-to test pilot for the rest of the program.

There's two other ones, and with five rocket-powered flights left, there's no way they're gonna give him another chance to get back into the, uh, the spacecraft.

Do you suspect there's something else in the black that the US is holding back on?

What got you interested in saying, "Hey, this is something I wanna make a documentary on, and, uh, this is an important story"? How did you get looped into it?

It's a little bit of a story.

I'll try to make it concise.

But, uh, basically I've been a cinematographer for about 30 years, uh, in Los Angeles.

And COVID came about and it, you know, there was a lot of pain in the world, and it got me to reassess what I wanted to do with my one life while I stopped working and the world stopped working.

And, um, you get one life that you know of.

And so for better or worse, um, I wanted to focus on aerospace.

Uh, tell us, tell us what happened.