Diana Pasulka Can't Answer Simple Joe Rogan Query: "How Do You Know It's True?"

​Yesterday, Diana Pasulka appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience to promote her new book, which I reviewed earlier this week. The interview did not go well for Pasulka, who seemed surprised that Rogan—of all people!—pushed back on some her outlandish ideas. One particular exchange stood out because Pasulka was unable to answer the simplest of questions: How do you know these things you are saying are true? A frustrated Pasulka stammered through what seemed like interminable efforts to sidestep the question before admitting she does not know. It seemed to be the very first time Pasulka had ever been challenged on one her outrageous UFO claims, and I was doubly surprised that Rogan ever so gently pushed back on the claim that space aliens deceive humans by implanting false visions of the future in their dreams and that Pasulka appears to have never considered, even for a moment, that these false prophecies—which I remind you are visions that do not come to pass--might not be real or from aliens and could simply be a person’s dreams. 

I mean, seriously, what kind of bubble must you be in to hear that someone dreamed something that had no relationship to actual events and to conclude from that not that the person had a surreal dream but that aliens sent them purposely wrong information as a false prophecy? Or that you don’t need to do any science to prove the vision originated outside the dreamer’s mind?
 
Even the researchers in “The Call of Cthulhu” needed a bit more than a few dreams before they concluded Cthulhu was sending them.
 
Anyway, the transcript makes for fascinating reading, and I truly hate to say it, but the rest of the media could learn a thing or two from the effectiveness of asking UFO advocates simple questions like “How do you know it is true?” But they are too busy trying to sound sophisticated and connected to the elites to humble themselves before simplicity.
 
Here is how the exchange went, beginning with Pasulka’s response, after discussing whether experiencers’ religious prophecies are the same as alien telepathy, to the question, “How are these visions manifesting themselves in their mind[s]?” Remember, she claims to have interviewed a thousand alien experiencers and somehow never thought to collect anything resembling evidence from them:

PASULKA: I would say that some people actually see things and the beings, like, impart telepathically, like, mind-to-mind transmission something this is going to happen and then they believe it. Okay, this happens within, like, angel events, like, Marian apparitions. happens to, you know, people. It happens to people in abductions as well. And, you know, I mean, that's what happens to them. They see things. They sometimes have visions in their dreams. So, there's there are a variety of ways that people can get this information.
 
ROGAN: Let's stop right there. Visions in their dreams could also just be dreams. Like, how can they make a distinction between just dreams like, “Oh, Godzilla was chasing me. I was on a skateboard. I ran into my cousin. We hid in his basement, and then I woke up.” Like, that's just a dream. That's not a prophecy. And if they're having those dreams as well as these visionary dreams that they think are inspired by some entity, how are they making the distinction between the two of them if both of them exist at the same time in the same person's mind?

PASULKA: Yeah. Yeah. So within the culture of—within our culture—we tend to put dreams in the same category. We say the dream about Godzilla is like, you know, all dreams are the same, right? They're either bad dreams or good dreams are neutral. There are other cultures that distinguish different types of dreams. And within the Western culture, there have been times when people have distinguished different types of dreams. Like, say, you take the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, you have Joseph, right? Joseph is a guy who's going to be big, uh, he's a prophet, and he has dreams where he's able to tell the future and he's able to distinguish between those dreams. So, within certain cultures even cultures today, like different religious cultures, they have distinctions uh the Martu in Australia, they have you know they talk about the Dream Time. So, we're kind of a culture that puts all dreams in the same category. And granted, that's true. Uh, in terms of discussing whether or not people are mentally ill, Travis Walton's not mentally ill, right?
 
ROGAN: But Travis Walton is not having prophecies.

PASULKA: No, I know, but he's one that doesn't. And there are others who do.
 
ROGAN: I understand. But we got to this place because you were talking about beings that deceive.

PASULKA: Yes. So, I'm saying that not all of them deceive. But I'm saying that I'm trying to explain.

ROGAN: I'm trying to ask you: How are they deceiving?

PASULKA: Well, I just told you. So, they'll be giving people information about the future, some of which is correct and some of which is not.

ROGAN: Okay. So, how are they giving them this information? They giving it to them telepathically or is it coming to them in a vision in a dream? It's two very different things, right?

PASULKA: Yeah. But that it could be both depending on the instance?
 
ROGAN: But if it's in a dream, how do they know it's coming from this entity and not just a dream? That's my point, like, if you’re saying they're being deceived.

PASULKA: Well, a lot of them won't make that distinction. And so that's where you need a …
 
ROGAN: The abductees …

PASULKA: Yeah.

ROGAN: … won't make that distinction?
 
PASULKA: Because they've never had this happen to them before. So, of course, they're going to think this is true. But my position is that: Be careful because we don't know if it's true or if it's not.
 
ROGAN: Right, but I mean, how are you making the distinction between what is just their imagination and them being deceived?
 
PASULKA: Right? That's the good question. I don't know.

ROGAN: So, how is Gary Nolan saying they lie?
 
PASULKA: Well, he's taking data and he's saying that they're saying this, you know, they're telling these people this information and it's wrong information. And so, he's not making, you know, he's not trying to make a big claim. He's just basically saying, you know, Tucker asks him why, you know, what kind of things are they saying? And he said, well, they're being deceived, right? They say deceitful things. And my point that, by the way, getting back to the original …
 
ROGAN: But it's very frustrating. Go ahead.

Throughout the conversation, Rogan was unusually combative. He pushed back on Pasulka citing JD Vance on the question of whether UFOs are demons, noting that little about UFOs resembles Christian ideas of demons. Although Rogan is not a skeptic--he defended Bob Lazar in this episode--he nevertheless gave Pasulka a run for her money, and Pasulka turned much of the conversation to topics from her book, particularly Catholic theology and her obstinate belief that John Keel and Jacques Vallée, who demonstrably traded in false stories, are important philosophers with deep insight into the paranormal. In short, Pasulka seemed ill-prepared, ill-informed, and utterly convinced by claims that exist primarily at the level of faith and fade before the questions of even someone as paranormally inclined as Joe Rogan.