#2533 - Diana Pasulka

Diana Walsh Pasulka (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, checking in.

Joe Rogan (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

SPEAKER_3 (0:06)

Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:13)

I'm Travis Walden, you know who he is, right?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (0:17)

Of course I know who he is, and I believe him.

Joe Rogan (0:20)

I do too. I mean, he certainly seems believable. I'm, you know, people that tell the same story for decades and decades without any variation to it.

It's hard, I mean, you know, I don't know what happened, but all the people that were with him during the time we're talking about for people just listening now, talking about Travis Walden, who was a man who in the 1970s was a logger in Arizona, and he was allegedly, or according to him, abducted by aliens.

And the people that he was with saw him get hit by a beam of light. They freaked out, took off. They were driving away, and they were like, we got to go back and get him. We got to go back and get him. They turned around and went back and got him, tried to get him. He was gone. The craft was gone. And he disappeared for five days and then turned up and had this insane story.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:14)

Yeah. And then he's taken those tests, like... Polygraph tests? Yeah, polygraph tests, like every year or something like that. Or he takes them regularly and he always passes them.

Joe Rogan (1:25)

Well, so did the people that were with him.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:27)

Yeah, yeah.

And I've seen people interview the people that were with him even just recently. And they're like, well, whatever, regardless of what I think about Travis as a person, yeah, that happened.

Joe Rogan (1:39)

Yeah, one of the guys actually got in a fistfight with him the day of the abduction. The guy did not like him.

Like, they hated each other. And then, you know, they were young guys. And then he had to testify. And he was like, it happened.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (1:53)

Yeah, yeah. Whatever it was. So, yeah, I believe him. And his interpretation has changed a lot, too, through the years, and not the facts. The facts are all the same. But his interpretation of them, like, you know, were they because he thought they were pretty maligned, like bad, right? He didn't enjoy being abducted. Let's put it that way.

But then over the years, he said, well, maybe something spiritual happened. But I don't know where he's at right now. I haven't seen a recent interview.

Joe Rogan (2:19)

There's an interesting one that's out now with him and Bob Lazar sitting across from each other.

Yeah, in a diner. It's very weird. They're sitting there eating pie, talking about what they think this whole thing is.

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:34)

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:37)

What's new in the world of all this?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (2:41)

Well, a lot, right? So the government has been releasing UFO files since May, 2026, and this is something that a lot of people think is really important. And, you know, it's a form of disclosure. They're pushing the group that is pushing this and happy that this is happening. They're also wanting the president to come out and say, Yeah, we, there are these things.

I saw JD Vance on your show the other day. That was really interesting. He's, of course, I was interested in what he had to say. You kind of pushed back on his, what he was talking about in terms of calling. I don't want to use that word, the D word, right?

Joe Rogan (3:23)

Demons?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (3:23)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (3:23)

Why don't you want to use that word?

Diana Walsh Pasulka (3:25)

Because I must take this opportunity now to say that I am speaking on your podcast as a private individual, and I don't represent my university talking about this, okay? So, I mean, seriously, look what happened to him. So, he basically was honest and said, yeah, I think that these are demons. Well, that was the headline, Joe. But when you actually listen to what he had to say, it was more complicated. And so, I thought that he did a good job of talking about it with you. And if you want, we can talk about that, why he would think that. He is Catholic.

I'm Catholic. I do history of Catholicism is part of what I do. By the way, I'm a professor of religious studies at university. So, yeah, so I've been like looking at that. I've been doing Catholic history my whole life. So I started to looking into UFO experiences in 2012