#2331 - Jesse Michels

**Joe Rogan** (0:01)
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

**Joe Rogan** (0:03)
The Joe Rogan Experience.

**Joe Rogan** (0:06)
Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

**Joe Rogan** (0:13)
Well, it's great to finally physically meet you face to face, man.

**Jesse Michels** (0:15)
It's an absolute honor, and I love your show so much. I'm a super fan, so this is surreal.

**Joe Rogan** (0:21)
Wow, I love your show too. So, I've been binging. I've been watching so many episodes ever since we talked. I've seen them before, but I mean, I've been really binging getting ready for the show.

**Jesse Michels** (0:32)
I don't know what to say.

**Joe Rogan** (0:35)
How did you get so deep down the rabbit hole? What made you want to dedicate so much time on this particular UAP, UFO, lost technology subject?

**Jesse Michels** (0:48)
I was working at Peter Thiel's family office in LA, and part of the job was kind of traditional venture investing, so investing in startups. And then part of it was looping in interesting thinkers to the office, and we would host events and discussions. And I ended up meeting a lot of really interesting people, not just in UFOs or secret technology, like religion and politics and economics and all sorts of topics.

**Joe Rogan** (1:15)
Were you there when he brought in the guy? Oh, fuck, what is his name?

**Jesse Michels** (1:19)
I know what you're going to say, Erich Von Daniken. I suggested that you come because I was like, Joe is going to be really into this, and you weren't that into it, but that's okay.

**Joe Rogan** (1:28)
I was into it. I just think that he just makes some leaps that are kind of silly.

**Jesse Michels** (1:33)
I agree with that. Although, I think there's a lot of... Yeah, I think he like crosses the T and dots the I where there is no dot or cross or whatever. But I do think there's some interesting preliminary evidence around people from the stars across disparate cultures. And you just had Zahi Hawass on. And a lot of this megalithic architecture, you're like, how can it be built? He's just filling in the placeholder kind of artificially, Eric Von Daniken.

**Joe Rogan** (1:59)
Yes. And I think he's also like, he made these conclusions in the 1970s, and he's kind of like sticking with them.

**Jesse Michels** (2:06)
Yep.

**Joe Rogan** (2:07)
I was more back then, because like, what year was that? That was 17?

**Jesse Michels** (2:13)
Chariots of the Gods.

**Joe Rogan** (2:13)
No, when I was at Peter Thiel's house, that must have been 2018, 2019 Okay. Back then, I was much more in line with law civilization, you know, that we had achieved very high levels of technology and sophistication, and there was no alien intervention. I've kind of shifted now. Yeah. Now I'm like, maybe the Anunnaki are real. Yeah.

**Jesse Michels** (2:39)
Well, I remember, I feel like you've switched back and forth a couple of times because you were super into Zacharias Sitchin, right?

**Joe Rogan** (2:45)
Yes.

**Jesse Michels** (2:45)
And then you brought up Zacharias Sitchin in that meeting, and you were like, but there's this site, Sitchin is Wrong, written by a guy named Michael Heiser. And then you like cited all the Sitchin is Wrong stuff or whatever.

**Joe Rogan** (2:56)
Yeah.

**Jesse Michels** (2:57)
So maybe you've come full circle. I don't know.

**Joe Rogan** (2:58)
Well, even the Sitchin is Wrong stuff, it's like the problem with debunkers is when you're dealing with, when you're dealing with information that's sort of way outside your wheelhouse, especially translation of ancient languages, you know, like I had Wes Hoff on and he was explaining to me, he's great. But he was explaining to me that he can't even read ancient Sumerian. Like he's...

**Jesse Michels** (3:22)
Totally.

**Joe Rogan** (3:23)
And he's like, I don't think Sitchin really could read it.

**Jesse Michels** (3:27)
Okay.

**Joe Rogan** (3:28)
He's like, I'm very skeptical if he actually could read it. He was explaining why.

**Jesse Michels** (3:33)
Aren't they using like ML, like they're using AI now to translate Sumerian. So it's definitely not that... But that goes... I mean, the kind of burden of proof is on Sitchin in this case, right? But it sort of goes against like, you know, the debunkers too. Like, it's like nobody knows. And I don't know if there was anything to the Sitchin stuff. The Sitchin stuff is crazy. It's like we can rehash it for the audience. There's a planet Nibiru, right? It's like outside the Kyber Belt. And they needed gold because their atmosphere was burning up and gold is reflective. So they like came here and they like seeded, helped seed civilization.